My song for today is from a Greatest Hits compilation
A soul/pop band from the late 70'/early 80's who feature in our current Best Song Poll. The song was their final hit reaching No.3 & in my mind is their best song even though Hector ignored this one in his votes
1964white wrote:My song for today is from a Greatest Hits compilation
A soul/pop band from the late 70'/early 80's who feature in our current Best Song Poll. The song was their final hit reaching No.3 & in my mind is their best song even though Hector ignored this one in his votes
Our very own Janice Nicholls gave it 10
I had to google that
[YouTube]v=GMcgkg9kPf0[/YouTube]
This is my tune of the day, if the link works lol
[YouTube]watch?v=GMcgkg9kPf0[/YouTube]
Right young lady all you have to do is erase the v= from your link & the clip will appear
Give it a try....applies with the majority of links, just retain the letters/numbers in general
I'm going back to 505, I saw them at Sheffield and they were amazing.
Alexandra leaving is perhaps the most haunting and mystical of Leonard Cohen's songs and is based on "The God Abandons Antony" (also known as "The God Forsakes Antony")
The poem is by Constantine P. Cavafy, published in 1911. The poem refers to Plutarch's story of how Antony, besieged in Alexandria by Octavian, heard the sounds of instruments and voices of a procession making its way through the city, and then passed out; the god Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector, was deserting him.
The poem in English, as translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard:
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
dont mourn your luck thats failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—dont mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, dont fool yourself, dont say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
dont degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
Leonard Cohen freely adapted the poem for his song "Alexandra Leaving" (Ten New Songs, 2002)[1]. Whereas Cavafy's theme was based around the city of Alexandria, Cohen's version builds around a woman named Alexandra.
