Leonard cohen
Frankfurt, Deutschland (Jahrhunderthalle)
6 April, 1972
Source: Audience
Running Time : 2:01:40 (Complete concert)
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Notes: this a very unusual concert. There are several long segments of talk between LC and the audience,
several improvisations and a few live rarities.
1st set:
01. [7:50] So Long, Marianne
02. [1:16] I Don't Know Why I'm Scared Tonight (improvisation)
03. [4:11] Bird On The Wire
04. [0:45] Audience Sounds
05. [0:45] I Passed The High Buildings (improvisation)
06. [0:27] Talk (I don't care if this concert becomes a riot)
07. [3:08] Lady Midnight
08. [5:53] Avalanche - solo
09. [5:32] You Know Who I Am
10. [6:31] The Stranger Song - solo
11. [1:39] I'm Trying To Break Free Myself (improvisation)
12. [4:36] One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
13. [1:20] Talk (It's hard to get quiet today)
14. [3:46] The Broken Lip (improvisation)
15. [5:51] Sing Another Song, Boys
16. [3:35] Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye
2nd set:
17. [4:32] Banks Of Marble
18. [9:41] The Partisan
19. [4:14] Talk (I came here to make love)
20. [4:14] Sisters Of Mercy
21. [1:03] Talk (Have I offended the audience)
22. [4:40] Story Of Isaac
23. [5:21] Famous Blue Raincoat
24. [4:29] Seems So Long Ago, Nancy
25. [0:51] Talk (I can't feel the warmth)
26. [4:48] Chelsea Hotel [#1]
27. [4:27] Kevin Barry
28. [1:11] Talk (You don't want them to smoke)
29. [2:20] Talk (If I have spoken too much tonight)
30. [4:11] Suzanne
31. [1:01] Audience Sounds
32. [6:34] Joan Of Arc
33. [0:41] Talk (Could you put the lights on)
Notes from leonardcohenlive.com
[lc720406-1]
source: audience (reel-to-reel)
length: 125 minutes (complete)
details: -.
---
This concert is very unusual in that Leonard spends a great deal of time talking to the audience.
There are also several improvisations. Below is transcribed the majority of the words spoken by
LC during this concert and improvised into songs. Some segments are, however, inaudible.
Track 02: I Don't Know Why I'm Scared Tonight (improvisation)
I don't know why I'm scared tonight, but I'm really scared
(sings)
Don't know why I'm scared tonight, but baby, I am
I don't know if it's just the crowd out there
I don't know if it's the slaughtered lamb
But I'm singing chains of gold for you
You know I've become a prisoner of song
With lawyers and contracts and royalties
And very little else in my hand.
Track 05: I Passed The High Buildings (improvisation)
(sings)
All they give me is gold to sing
I pass the high buildings I?d like to bring down, you know
I pass the banks that I?d like to see burning
I pass the voyeurs who are making me a star, you know
I pass the stores with the television sets so high
Who do you think I mean .. like, I got my problems too, you know
Track 06: Talk (I don't care if this concert becomes a riot)
I mean, I don't care if this concer-- You know, I have been noted for my quiet calm and for my
melancholy and solemn atmosphere, but I don't care if this concert turns into a riot! Because
I can't go along with this pretense any longer. Here goes ...
Track 11: I'm Trying To Break Free Myself (improvisation)
Hope y'all ...(indistinguishable)
(leonard starts playing guitar, audience applauds, then he stops after a few bars)
You couldn't possible know what song that is. (laughter and applause)
I start all my songs that way. (laughter)
That's the only chord I know.
(someone in the audience says something indistinguishable)
Pardon?
(audience member repeats)
Oh, thank you. Oh forgive my ingratitude. (laughter)
Really, that's all forgiven.
It's the first day of Passover and I ... I'm ah .. The last one ... see that's how confused I
am. And ah it's the festival of freedom. And I'm trying to break free, myself.
(sings)
I'm trying to break free myself you know
Trying to lose my old songs
Trying to start a new life before it's too late
Trying to get along.
Track 13: Talk (It's hard to get quiet today)
I'm feeling better ... are you feeling better? (some agreement from audience and applause).
Gotta keep, gotta keep purifying it you know. Gets out of hand.
Hard to get quiet today.
(silence)
(strange honking sound from audience)
See what I mean?
That's not my idea of quiet.
(more silence .. audience chatters a bit and laughs nervously)
Track 14: Talk (It's hard to get quiet today)
(audience member: "Leonard, sing about the broken lip" -- perhaps a reference to /Diamonds in the Mine/
which has a line about a broken LIMB)
The Broken lip?
(sings)
I don't recall the broken lip
He must be thinking of some other singer
I never had a broken lip myself
But I'm willing to try it out
So why don't you come right up here
And punch me in the mouth
I ain't got no broken lip, babe
And you can see my mouth is perfectly whole
There isn't even a trace of a cold sore
Let alone a broken lip
Come to think of it, I did have a broken lip
But that was a long time ago
When I was a lot younger and a lot thinner
And a lot more ambitious
And a lot more reverent
A lot more reverent
A whole lot more reverent
I think it was my sister
Who really had the broken lip
I remember her lip, not only was it broken
You could say it was entirely mutilated
She had a handicap
Oh little sister, you got no mouth at all
Oh little sister, you got no mouth at all
Do you find it hard to drink water?
Do you find it hard to drink wine?
You know I get down on my knees and I pray for you
Little lipless sister of mine.
Oh it wasn't my sister
No I think it was my best friend
That's why I liked him
He was very little competition
In those adolescent kissing games
Track 17: Banks of Marble
(starts strumming the chords to The Partisan)
I think it was exactly two years ago today that I sang here for the .. Four students at Kent
University were shot down. Nobody remembers that anymore. I dedicated this song to them, two
years ago. I haven't forgotten about it. I still see the police out there.
(suddenly changes strumming pattern and sings)
The banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the miners sweated for
I wandered around this country
From shore to shining shore
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw.
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the miners sweated for
(spoken)
Well I have wandered around the country and I see it's about the same. But I wouldn't want to try
myself to start a revolution here. Because I know that nobody here is ready for a revolution.
I mean you've all got your good suit of clothes in the closet. You're still feeling pretty good
about your family - don't want to disappoint your father. Still building up the old bank account,
pfennig by pfennig.
(sings) So this ain't no time to start a revolution. I suggest, if you feel like,
organising something you start off with the Rotary club.
(spoken)
Anyhow.... A couple of years ago they shot down four students. I mean four students, that's not many.
After all a tidal wave rolls in on the East Pakistan wiped out a quarter of a million people. And who
knows how famine ensued. Anyhow, they were shot down. In my idealistic naivete -- or from a less
charitable point of view, in my greedy desire to win the audience to my side posing as the sensitive
idealist -- I dedicated this song to the four students that died at Kent University. And I'd like to
make the same dedication ...
Track 19: Talk (I came here to make love)
(indistinguishable comment from an audience member)
How can you ... songs without making love?
(various indistinguishable comments from audience, ending in a honking sound and laughter)
I'd like YOU to come back tomorrow when you've sobered up.
Apparently you believe that it is a mark of .. intoxication to want to make love to people you find
attractive. I mean how long are you, how long are you gonna gone on enduring this city. Pardon?
(Audience member says: "We came here to see you sing, not to watch you make love")
I came here to make love! (applause)
I mean really, I want to ask you seriously .. would you rather hear me sing, or make love? OK, make
love. OK. I mean I'm not the mad one, you know. I've taken nothing, you know .. just a little banzite(?)
and a little wine. A little acid.
(Audience member says: "how much you earn ..")
I mean, I know where I am. I know that when I come into a place like this I come here to make love. I
come here to feel other people, the possibility of them making love. I'm sorry, that's the way it is
with me. I started to sing with an idea that my songs could bring people into that. We live in cities,
we pass THOUSANDS of strangers every day. The only way the cities will ever be redeemed is if people can
approach each other on the streets for the sole and singular purpose of making love. (applause)
I'll tell you another thing. All the programmes of ecology, all the programmes of slum clearance, all
the programmes of aid to the poor and the correction of poverty will not take place, will fail .. until
we understand the purpose, why we have gathered in these vast numbers. In places on this planet. The
reason we have gathered in these dense masses in city after city is so that we can explode old notions
of what love is.
Forget the singing, forget the concert, forget the structure ... forget the .. the whole thing. And ..
(comment from the audience)
Pardon?
(more comments from the audience)
OK. OK.
(comment from the audience: "Sing, that's what we came here for.")
If you listen to me sing .. and you can't listen to me talk .. what you're hearing is a lie. You have
made a .. (applause)
This is what I'm singing about.
Track 21: Talk (Have I offended the audience)
I am ..(indistinguishable)
Have I offended the audience? Have I alienated you all?
(Audience shouts back "No")
There comes a time, you know, where you just got to tell where it comes from.
(Starts strumming)
This is a song I wrote .. to the people who feel it is within their right to sacrifice the young. For some
purpose that they conceive to be holy or just. It's a song for them, its and also a song for those who would
enlist my aid in defeating those men. Because ah I don't want to join any programme. I don't want to write
my name at the end of any manifesto.
Track 24: Seems So Long Ago, Nancy
This is a song for a girl named Nancy who was a real girl, who went into the bathroom of her father's house,
took her brother's shotgun and blew her head off. Age of 21. Maybe this is an arrogant thing to say, but
maybe she did it because there weren't enough people saying what I've been saying.
Track 25: Talk (I can't feel the warmth)
You know I can't feel the warmth .. if there is any. I can't feel the warmth with which you receive the
songs. I don't want to listen to the applause. I don't want to become an applause meter. I don't want to
gauge how successful the song has been by the velocity or the volume of your applause. So ... don't bother
applauding.
I'll sing a couple more songs then call it a night. After all ah the lights are gonna go down and we're all
going to go off to our separate places.
Track 26: Chelsea Hotel #1
(the lyrics to this rare live song are as follows)
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
You were talking so brave and so free.
Giving me head on the unmade bed
While the limousines wait in the street
And those were the reasons and that was New York,
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song,
It still is for those of us left.
But you got away, didn't you, baby?
You just threw it all to the crowd.
You got away, they can't pay you now
For making your sweet little song.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
In the winter of 67.
My friends of that year they were all trying to go queer
And me I was just getting even
And those were the reasons and that was New York,
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song,
It still is for those of us left.
But you got away, didn't you, baby?
You just threw it all to the crowd.
You got away, they can't pay you now
For making your sweet little song.
Track 27: Kevin Barry
There's a song that was written in Ireland in 1916.
There's no reason ..
(he says: "neason", a run-on of "need" and "reason"
- i.e. - he starts out saying "there's no need.....",
and changs in mid-word to "there's no reason....". )
.. at all why the troubles in Ireland should concern you.
(a girl says something like - "they no concern yo"
- with a central european accent?
- whatever it was it got a few chuckles and a response from Leonard. )
...all the more reason why they shouldn't concern you.
But perhaps you remember this song?
(sings)
Early on a Sunday mornin',
Hight above a gallow tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.
Just a lad of 18 summers,
Yet there's no one can deny,
That he went to death that morning,
Nobly held his head up high.
He'll die an Irish soldier
"Ye'll not hang me like a dog.
For i fought for Irland's freedom,
On that dark September morn.
Well all around the little bakery
We fought them hand to hand.
Shoot me like an Irish soldier,
For I fought to free Irland."
Just before he faced the hang man
In his lonely prison cell,
British soldiers tortures Barry
Just because he would not tell
The names of his companions,
Other things they wished to know
"Turn informer, and we'll free you".
Proudly Barry answered "no".
"Shoot me like an Irish soldier,
Do not hang me like your dog,
For I fought for Irland's freedom,
On that dark Semptember morning.
All around the little bakery
We fought them hand to hand.
Shoot me like an Irish soldier
For I fought to free Irland.
Shoot me like an Irish soldier.
Do not hang me like your dog.
For I fought for Irland's freedom
On that dark September morning.
All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand
Shoot me like an Irish soldier
For I fought to free Ireland.
Track 28: Talk (You don't want them to smoke)
(indistinguishable chatter from the audience)
You want to smoke? Is someone asking(?) you to smoke?
(audience member: "Don't want them to smoke")
You don't want them to smoke?
Listen -- if you don't want them to stop smoking, you're going to have to organize a party.
You're going to have to proselytize. You're going to have to convert. You're going to
have to establish an organisation. You're going to have to run for parliament. You're going
to have to establish the Reichstag. You're going to have to declare yourself the unconditional
leader of the country. And abolish it. Until that happens, people will be free to smoke
wherever they wish. (applause)
Track 29: Talk (If I have spoken too much tonight)
If I have spoken too much tonight .. it's just that's the way I am. Sometimes I talk a lot,
sometimes I don't talk at all.
(audience member: ".. talk alot")
I'd like to talk to you.
(audience member: "good")
But I've said just about everything I've got to say. I ran through sex. Thought about no smoking.
Talked about my sister's broken lip. That just about exhausts my font of conversation.
So I want to thank you for ... I don't know exactly what it is I want to thank you for. But it's ..
Actually I felt that it was pretty cold. But that's uh y'know my own opinion. I .. I imagine that
if I found myself alone in a room with each of you, we could establish some kind of rapport. But
en masse I find uh y'know ... there's no reason why I shouldn't tell you how I feel about you.
Collectively. I felt .. I felt that ah .. it's true, I did try to alienate you in a sense. But I
felt that ah .. Perhaps it's the hall that dissipates the warmth. I don't think these halls are
built with humans in mind. I think they're built with some kind of mutation that has not yet occurred.
Perhaps in the future .. (applause)
I know, I know ... I don't wish to hurt the feelings of the person who planned the acoustics .. of this
hall. The acoustics are perfect, the lights are perfect, no doubt you and I are perfect. And yet there
is some subtraction from excellence -- from perfect excellence -- that I feel. I feel that I was not
deeply loved. Ah, I feel that I did not love deeply. I feel that I did not come here with ah with an
open heart and give you the total gift. Perhaps that's why I was reduced to conversation. And perhaps
some other time ah, we'll be able to strike it on a .. on a better level. But ah ..
Track 30: Suzanne
I'd like to end off with a song that I love.
Track 32: Joan of Arc
I like what's happening to women today and ... I know they .. they don't need my support, anyway. They
have established a female .. a female deity. This is a song for a brave woman.
Track 33: Talk (Could you put the lights on)
I want to thank you very much .. Can you put the lights on? I'd like to see everybody. Yeah, could you
bring them on?
(audience member to venue staff: "lights on!")
I think we finally got through to each other .. and I'm very happy for it. I want to say good night to
you and thank you for your hospitality.
So long.