It was called the Traitor. It was about the feeling we have of betraying some mission that we were mandated to fulfil and being unable to fulfil it and then coming to understand that the real mandate was not to fulfil it. The deeper courage was to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself.

– Leonard Cohen

A concert film that had a big impact on my appreciation of Leonard Cohen’s music was I’m Your Man (2005), which explores his life and career. It’s based on a January 2005 tribute show at the Sydney Opera House titled Came So Far for Beauty. For me – a new convert to Cohen’s work – it was enough to spark a deeper dive into his music. Today’s featured song,The Traitor by Martha Wainwright is taken from that show. Other Cohen songs from the concert have also appeared here, including Everybody Knows by Rufus Wainwright, Suzanne by Nick Cave and If It Be Your Will by Anthony.

The Traitor is both a haunting story of betrayal and a meditation on the nature of failure. In his own reflections prefacing this article, Cohen described the song as fundamentally positive, about the unavoidable predicament of failing in situations beyond one’s full control, and the importance of standing guiltless – accepting your circumstances without self-blame. For him, it was about not dwelling on the past, which cannot be changed, but meeting life’s inevitable defeats with dignity.

Heard without that guiding perspective, however, the song unfolds as a darker tale. It opens with serene, romantic imagery – a swan on an English river, a rose of high romance – only to have this beauty undercut by the protagonist’s actions and the harsh judgement of others. The foreshadowed “shabby ending,” along with “scarlet fever” and “sense of shame,” carries the weight of illness, guilt, and condemnation. His proud yet sorrowful claim of being “her finest lover,” followed by the blame for her decline, shows how love can destroy. His “idle duty” of touching and praising her beauty becomes less an act of affection than a quiet penance, revealing a man caught between acceptance and regret.

The Traitor is from Cohen’s sixth studio album called Recent Songs released in 1979. The album marked a return to Cohen’s acoustic folk music after the Phil Spector-driven experimentation of Death of a Ladies’ Man. The singer decided to produce the album himself with assistance from Henry Lewy, who had previously worked regularly with Joni Mitchell. The album had a Eastern-tinged flavor and was augmented by the singing of Jennifer Warnes and newcomer Sharon Robinson, who would go on to become one of Cohen’s favorite musical collaborators.

Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter who has has released seven studio albums. She is the younger sister of the aforementioned singer–composer Rufus Wainwright. The Wainwright family have more than just a close connection to Leonard Cohen. Not only did they perform five songs in his tribute concert, but in 2011 Rufus Wainwright, a gay man, announced the birth of his first child, Katherine Wainwright Cohen, conceived via sperm donation from his childhood friend Lorca Cohen, Leonard’s daughter.

Now the Swan it floated on the English river
Ah, the Rose of High Romance, it opened wide
A sun tanned woman yawned me through the summer
And the judges watched us from the other side

I told my mother, “Mother, I must leave you
Preserve my room but do not shed a tear
Should rumour of a shabby ending reach you
It was half my fault and half the atmosphere”

But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever
And the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame
She said at last I was her finest lover
And if she withered I would be to blame

The judges said you missed it by a fraction
Rise up and brace your troops for the attack
Ah, the dreamers ride against the men of action
Oh, see the men of action falling back

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still
My falsity had stung me like a hornet
The poison sank and it paralysed my will

I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
That they had been deserted from above
So on battlefields from here to Barcelona
I’m listed with the enemies of love

And long ago she said, “I must be leaving
Ah, but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I’m sleeping
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan”

So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there — I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
And people call me traitor to my face

References:
1. Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man – Wikipedia
2. Recent Songs – Wikipedia