Famous Blue Raincoat

My new commute to work takes 12 minutes in the morning (I'm not sure about the afternoon because I haven't yet figured out the best way to go, though I think yesterday I might have found it: 10 minutes!). The morning commute isn't bad at all, but it's made positively pleasant by the radio show I've discovered on an independent station at the farthest end of the dial. It plays acoustic/singer/songwriter stuff: peaceful, melodic, well-lyricked--just the thing to ease me into my day (on the way home that station has a reggae show that I used to love, but for some reason it's been annoying me, so I listen to Top 40 instead--why that doesn't annoy me, I can't tell you).

(And yes, I know that as a middle-aged, white, liberal intellectual, I should be listening to NPR, but I'm not, because I am the only middle-aged, white, liberal intellectual in America who does not listen to NPR, even though I know that Terry Gross is great and Prairie Home Companion is still funny, and I will occasionally listen to them if I come across them, but basically NPR gets on my nerves, so please don't tell me how great This American Life and that quiz show are because I'm happy for you that you enjoy them, but I'm not interested.)

But this was not meant to be a post about radio, though I've had a radio post in the back of my mind for months. (Did you know that the slogan of the classic rock station in East Coast Big City is "The Music You Grew Up With," and I really did grow up with it?! At least my kids are impressed.) No, this post is supposed to be about "Famous Blue Raincoat."

For all my supposed alt-country/punk credentials, I'm still a 70s white girl at heart. Indeed, my very first substantive blog post was about how much I love Carly Simon, and it's probably a good thing for everyone that I've never gotten started on Elton John or the Eagles. I could digress here about what constitutes 70s music, but for me it's pretty simple: the music I heard and loved in the 70s which, if we want to be technical, really lasted until 1981 (there's also a Soft Cell post coming up some day, but not today). So I count the Grateful Dead as one of my 70s loves (Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, 1970), and I would have written about the 10th anniversary of Jerry's death, but I was on vacation (does it make it any better if I say I was going to write about Jerry and Kurt Cobain? probably not). Joni Mitchell counts for 70s in my book as well.

Why am I having so much trouble getting to "Famous Blue Raincoat"? Ah yes, "Suzanne." Really I know hardly anything about Leonard Cohen, except that people worship him. I hardly know his music. But like every other 70s hippie chick, I just love "Suzanne." Whether it's sung by Judy Collins (another 70s favorite) or by Leonard himself, as soon as she takes me down to her place near the river, I'm gone, and don't even get me started on oranges that come all the way from China, let alone the fact that I'm half-crazy myself.

I don't know why my digressive tendencies are so dominant today. "Famous Blue Raincoat." There was a point here.

Oh yes, so I was listening to the lovely radio show as I drove to work, and the D.J. said he was going to play "Famous Blue Raincoat" by Leonard Cohen, and I thought, oh, the famous Leonard Cohen whom people worship but I really know nothing about except for "Suzanne" which I love, so I think I'll pay attention. And can I just say that "Famous Blue Raincoat," as sung by Leonard Cohen, is just an incredible, mind-blowing, beautiful song?

There, that's all, that was the point.

[Of course I googled because I'm a googling kind of girl. Leonard says this about it. Now I really want this and this.]