LC makes me drool. I love that man so damn much. Chelsea Hotel was the song that drew me to him years ago. You want an intense emotional rollercoaster, though, try listening to the entire of Songs of Love and Hate first thing in the morning. You'll be weeping by the middle of Famous Blue Raincoat. It's one of my favorite ways to start the day.

Heh. "Famous Blue Raincoat" also came up. One of my favoritest songs ever.

I've currently got it on a "Best of" compilation. I've always gotten overwhelmed when I go to buy an actual Cohen album.

The only thing that I do not worship about Leonard Cohen was that once, he apparently let slip that he wrote that song about Janis Joplin, and has been apologizing about his "lack of gallantry" in doing that.

The last time I saw him perform (at the Schnitz) he brought it up, and he does again in the movie. I would have never known who it was that he was writing about, if he had not been so insistent about apologizing for it.

I saw Rufus W. doing it in the movie, at the Film Forum late one night. It felt cool to go back to Chelsea, after midnight, on a warm summer night, getting off the train near the Hotel there.

I don't know -- it seems like he probably needs to keep apologizing to Joplin (yes, I know she's dead). Though I think in the interview I read about it, he said that he had no idea why he had chosen to be so cruel, which seems like a more sincere sort of thing than just apologizing for not being gallant. There's something about the cruelty of that song that makes it work, though... I don't know.

But my point is that I have been a rabid Leonard Cohen fan (if such a person can exist) since before most of you were born, and I had never heard of that reference, until his numerous mea culpas.

I can see your point, though.

Yeah, and I definitely see yours. It seems like there's so much speculation about all the meanings of his songs, though, that if he let it slip even once, it would likely be disseminated fairly quickly, which I think leaves continually apologizing as probably his best and most honorable option.

My word, but I'm inarticulate today. Simple sentences are my friend.

For a long time I didn't know who that song was about. But then hearing who it was about made the song richer for me. The phrase about how she "turned her back on the crowd". Revealing her name was a bit indiscrete of him though. And it has a kind of name-dropping sense about it, since she's still more of a well known name than he is.

Yeah, like the time I "serviced" Katherine Hepburn AND Spencer Tracy in a wet, gritty restroom stall by the beach at the foot of Sunset Blvd.

I've mentioned it a few times but mostly have kept quiet about it, and kept the scanned pics OFF flickr.

I've actually been in the Chelsea Hotel, at least the lobby anyway. My friend Sal was buying weed there.