Love Itself is the fourth song to appear here from Leonard Cohen’s tenth studio album Ten New Songs. It staggers me the sheer quantity of excellent music Leonard realised post 2000s. Of the 21 songs already posted here by Cohen, 9 of them were released since 2000. That’s extraordinary when you consider he was 66 years old in 2000. I have so much adoration for today’s featured song. It’s a slow, meditative piece, but feels as enduring and meaningful as any of his most alluring music. Sharon Robinson who features on the cover, produced and cowrote the album. It was produced in Cohen’s and Robinson’s home studios in Los Angeles. It was also Leonard’s first album in nearly 10 years.
The light came through the window
Straight from the sun above
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of love
In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see
Out of which the nameless makes
A name for one like me
I’ll try to say a little more
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door
Then love itself, love itself was gone
The following is paraphrased from some of the more insightful interpretations from Song Meanings:
A stream of light, meaningless in itself, seems to be in the context of a life charged by a relationship of love. Sometimes you can’t recognise it with the sun in your eyes. That relationship is now over, and his capacity “to see and feel” in a way that had been previously empowered by his relationship of love is now lost and extinguished. It’s about how we are created by the hand or the will of the Nameless from dust, and then have a trip through formless circumstances. And finally return to the same room where there is no difference between the nameless and the name or between being ever created or never being exists.
Before I present the following thoughts from Sharon Robinson below, I want to highlight just how incredible her voice is. She remarks how Alexandra Leaving is one of her favourites from Leonard Cohen. Watch her sing this song from 1:05 in this live version.
For his 80th birthday, in this BBC interview Sharon Robinson recollected her time with Leonard:
When we did Ten New Songs from 2001 we tried doing some different things and started singing in a lower register and I think that style of singing has evolved and just improved and gotten really amazing…Mostly Leonard had been studying Zen before that and writing all during that time and presented me with these amazing lyrics he had been working on. These very thoughtful and deep lyrics and I would mostly take the lyrics home and work on the music….I love Alexandra Leaving – that lyric is just a gift, I love Everybody Knows. There’s a song on Ten New Songs that isn’t as well known. It’s just magical. It’s a song called Love Itself..I feel very fortunate to have participated in those songs.
References:
1. Ten New Songs – Wikipedia
2. Song Meanings – Love Itself
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
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