El viejo resabiado

Todos los años se habla de la posible candidatura de Bob Dylan para el Premio Nobel de Literatura. Sin embargo, creo que, si finalmente la Academia se decidiera por un artista de este tipo (Gómez Rufo dice que los únicos poetas que quedan son los compositores de canciones), la pelea debería darse entre Dylan y Leonard Cohen.

Es ridículo ennumerar las grandes obras de Cohen, por lo que solo voy a dejarlos con mi favorita que, aunque musicalmente inferior a The Future, por ejemplo, refleja esa única forma de escritura de Cohen, que mezcla lo religioso con lo sexual, el desencantamiento con la esperanza, lo sublime con lo más pueril.

Según Cohen, esta canción empezó con un sonido en su cabeza que es muy diferente al bizarro country (¿o es una polka? ¿es música irlandesa?) que finalmente todos podemos disfrutar. Creo que las dos letras (la que él escribió y borró, y la que finalmente quedó) son dignas de la más alta literatura, como sus novelas: The favourite Game y Beautiful Losers.

Leonard Cohen, Closing Time:



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Ah we're drinking
and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high

And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion
she's rubbing half the world against her thigh

And every drinker
every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime

all the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's CLOSING TIME

Yeah the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's CLOSING TIME

Ah we're lonely,
we're romantic
and the cider's laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"

And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief

So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes
and up the ladder to the tower where the blessed hours chime

and I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh,
a cry,
a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love
they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since but CLOSING TIME

I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh,
a cry,
a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since CLOSING TIME

I loved you for your beauty
but that doesn't make a fool of me:
you were in it for your beauty too

and I loved you for your body
there's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring,
(declaring, declaring)
declaring that your body's really you

And I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime

and I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between,
I guess it's CLOSING TIME

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between,
I guess it's CLOSING TIME

Yeah we're drinking
and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening
and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night

And my very close companion
gets me fumbling gets me laughing
she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight

And I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime

And the whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights
we're busted in the blinding lights,
busted in the blinding lights of CLOSING TIME

The whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights
we're busted in the blinding lights,
busted in the blinding lights of CLOSING TIME

Oh the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
It's CLOSING TIME

And it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops
It's CLOSING TIME

I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
It's CLOSING TIME

The Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
But CLOSING TIME

I loved you when our love was blessed
I love you now there's nothing left
But CLOSING TIME

I miss you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.


***UNA INVITACIÓN:

Las letras no son como las de Cohen (hablan de la chica de los betamaxes, del novio que le quemó el cuarto a la novia y de las almohadas podridas), pero vale la pena ir a sacudirse un rato al ritmo del grupo favorito de las chonquetas.


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