For me, as a long time fan, I've always found that most Leonard Cohen covers fall flat, largely because the artist covering the song (any of his songs, not just this one) just doesn't really have the pathos and intensity of feeling combined with that emotional restraint (in terms of the performance) which Cohen naturally imbued into his work. It reminds me of a talk I heard years ago that Nick Cave did on the concept of "duende" in love songs and how in order to be true love songs, they have to possess a certain quality...
"All love songs must contain "duende", because the love song is never simply happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love, without having within their lines an ache or a sigh, are not love songs at all, but rather hate songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our human-ness and our God-given right to be sad, and the airwaves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the whispers of sorrow and the echoes of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker reaches of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, magic and joy of love, for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil, so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering."
Perhaps a bit melodramatic but it's something I've often thought about.
Anyway, this is all a very long winded way to say that tonight I was listening to some of the Leonard Cohen tributes from the Tower of Song when I heard Damien Rice's cover of Famous Blue Raincoat and... he nailed it. Absolutely spot on. I think it's one of the very best covers of any currently out there and I know there are a lot of Cohen fans here so I thought I'd share! :)
