Did Cohen Plagiarize or Allude to Longfellow?
Many critics and songwriters consider Leonard Cohen to write lyrics that match the quality Bobby Dylan’s words. I have always been skeptical of this view, but Cohen does have some gems. I have been studying many of the best lyricists and months ago I came across a video of Cohen reading Tower of Song – something he wrote that has been covered about 20 times. I vaguely recall being jealous of Cohen’s writing abilities when I first heard Tower of Song.
Here’s a great video recording of Cohen singing Tower of Song with a great backing band named U2. The Edge plays a sweet sad guitar:
I have been downloading a lot of audio readings of poems and short stories from a great website called LibriVox.org. This morning I listened to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Mezzo Cammin. I felt disturbed by the similarities between Cohen’s Tower of Song and Longfellow’s Mezzo Cammin. They share the theme of the speaker growing old and lamenting the joys of youth that he has lost. Longfellow uses the precise phrase “tower of song” in the fourth line of his poem. The phrase “tower of song” has become a Cohen signature and staple, but it is not his. The title of Longfellow’s poem itself is actually an allusion to the first few lines of Dante’s Divine Comedia. I take delight in seeing a chain of poets connected through history:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che la diritta via era smarrita.In the middle of the journey of our life,
I found myself in a dark wood
with the right road lost.
Here is a reading of Mezzo Cammin:
I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes the ideas and even the precise words of Longfellow. Also, I realize that a lot of art plagiarizes or borrows from art the has come before it, but Cohen’s usage bothers me nonetheless. I wonder whether he figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering. Cohen’s egotism also bothers me:
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
His egotism would not bother me if his writing were more original and creative. To his credit, he does place Hank Williams one hundred floors above him in the Tower of Song out of respect. Bob Dylan has called Williams the greatest songwriter of all time.
Slightly off-topic, I watched the movie Bound for Glory last night, which is based on Woody Guthrie’s autobiography of his impoverished days on the barren roads of America before he had any fame or any money. Guthrie started it all. Bruce Springsteen alludes to this book on the fifth track, Lost in the Flood, of his first album – Greetings from Asbury Park. I consider his first album and the songs he wrote before he recorded his first album to be his best written songs from a lyrical vantage point.
Tower of Song
Leonard Cohen
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don’t let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song
Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter
but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in
the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song
I see you standing on the other side
I don’t know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We’ll never have to lose it again
Now I bid you farewell, I don’t know when I’ll be back
They’re moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone
I’ll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song
Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
Mezzo Cammin
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Half my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,–
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,–
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
Comment by Dave on 1 December 2008 at 12:56 pm:
I really doubt that “I was born with the gift of a golden voice” is Cohen being egotistical. I’ve heard him joking around in interviews and award shows about how bad his voice is.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 1 December 2008 at 1:40 pm:
I don’t think that Cohen means that line to be read literally. I think he refers there to his lyrical writing ability, not to the literal sonorous quality of his voice.
To clarify, regardless of whether he plagiarized this song from Longfellow, I consider Cohen to be a great songwriter. I respect him a lot, but sometimes I feel respect for him is overdone.
Comment by George Lopez on 1 December 2008 at 4:34 pm:
Billy,
No one gives a flying fuck. The only theft of creative thought is your bastardization of the University of Illinois logo at the top of this page.
George
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 1 December 2008 at 7:45 pm:
That was sweet George. Thank you for your thoughtful contribution.
Comment by alan on 2 December 2008 at 2:42 am:
Your belief that the line “I was born with the gift of a golden voice” is egotistical has reduced the credibility of your comments to zero in my eyes.
Comment by DrHGuy on 2 December 2008 at 4:43 am:
Re the excerpt from Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song,”
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond,
They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song.
Almost all critics, reviewers, and feature writers and certainly Cohen’s concert audiences regard “I was born with the gift of a golden voice” as a self-depreciating joke, an assertion quickly verified with a Google search for these terms: ["Leonard Cohen" "born with the gift of a golden voice"]. To make it even easier, add “Joke” to the search.
For the record,I also don’t believe, personnel costs being what they are, that Cohen was attended by 27 angels, even if they were outsourced “from the Great Beyond.” On the other hand, I still unsure whether he’s into activities like being “tied to a table.”
Other than the “tower of song” phrase, which, as you point out dates back at least to Dante’s Divine Comedia, the only textual evidence offered to support the charge of plagiarism is the “shared theme of the speaker growing old and lamenting the joys of youth that he has lost,” a motif that is extraordinarily common and generic in poetry, and one that obviously predates Longfellow.
I respectfully submit that plagiarism is an especially serious accusation to level at an artist (even when that accusation is set in terms of “I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes …” which is a bit like saying, “I cannot tell whether Smith has threatened to or actually beats his wife.”)without evidence far more substantial than presented here.
Further, the statement, “I wonder whether he figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering,” straightforwardly assumes that Cohen was pilfering, a charge hardly proven by anything found in this post. While I am not privy to what Leonard Cohen “figured,” I do know he was a published poet with a university education in the field; one might assume that he would realize that someone somewhere, one of his fellow students or teachers, for example, might read both Longfellow and his own lyrics and notice any lifted material.
I suspect I could make the same kind of case to support the hypothesis that Leonard Cohen plagiarized his song, Hallelujah, from the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah.
Finally, I want to note that this material could have been written up as an interesting speculation on Longfellow’s poem as a possible influence on Cohen’s song. Twisting scant evidence into a charge of plagiarism, however, strikes me as sensationalism and scandal-mongering. That the acknowledged motivation for making such an serious accusation was errantly taking seriously a self-depreciating joke lends a air of bathos to the mix.
Comment by Joshua on 2 December 2008 at 9:05 am:
DrHGuy,
Thank you for providing us with such a well thought out commentary on BJM’s post. Taking your word for your research, I concur with your analysis. BJM overuses the word disturbed too, Cohen’s making a reference or allusion to the “Tower of Song” shouldn’t disturb anyone. Finding a severed arm in the microwave, sure. But Billy, you were “disturbed”? Please.
BJM, I do appreciate your writing this post. I wasn’t familiar with Cohen before now, and I’d like to check out more of his stuff. I am curious, why do you say “His egotism would not bother me if his writing were more original and creative.” Why do you think he lacks originality and creativity? Is this linked to your view that he is borrowing too much?
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 2 December 2008 at 3:32 pm:
I am becoming frustrated at the frequency and number of people who misinterpret the things that I write. It seems people wish to assume that I am saying something when that something is often only a portion of what I am saying. Please consider the whole picture.
This mysterious DrHGuy wrote a lengthy comment above and a lengthy blog post that can be read here: http://1heckofaguy.com/2008/12/02/irony-alert-cohens-i-was-born-with-the-gift-of-a-golden-voice-is-self-deprecating-humor/#comment-27329
Here is my response to both:
I am the author of the original post.
Your misreading and misinterpretation of what I wrote is bizarre and unfortunate. Your response, based on your misreading is callow and unnecessarily spiteful. You use multiple instances of flawed logic and I will expose them below.
First, you try to make a casual claim between me accusing Cohen of an egotistical boast and me accusing Cohen of alluding to or plagiarizing Longfellow. This is poor logic. You made this accusation when you wrote, “That the author’s misunderstanding of Cohen’s self-denigrating line led instead to accusations of literary theft . . .” My claim that Cohen is egotistical had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to write the post or to question whether Cohen alluded to or plagiarized Longfellow. They are thoroughly unrelated comments on Cohen. My discussion of Cohen’s ego comes later in the post as an afterthought. I find it bizarre that you concentrate on those few lines and then assign it the ability to retroactively inspire my noticing of the similarity between Cohen and Longfellow. Please, I beg you, show me the logical connection between believing that Cohen is egotistical (a point I don’t really care about at all) and believing that Cohen alluded to or stole from Longfellow. Furthermore, my belief that Cohen is egotistical comes more from when I hear him speak than from that one line. The last few seconds of the U2 video is an example. I believe he speaks a lot of false humility. Regardless, as I said, I don’t actually give a damn whether he is egotistical. In fact, I believe that he deserves to be egotistical because of his poetic, musical, and popular success.
Second, I interpret the line, “I was born like this, I had no choice / I was born with the gift of a golden voice” differently than you do. I find both of our interpretations to be valid. I believe that line refers to his ability to write songs and poems, not his ability to literally sing them. For instance, you might say that Homer has the gift of a golden voice, although we cannot hear him now at all. My reading of this line is based on the larger context of the poem, which houses its author, Cohen, in some imaginary and immortal tower of song, in which presumably numerous great poets throughout history reside. Nevertheless, I wish to emphasize that the interpretation of this line has absolutely nothing to do with the main point of my post. Your concentration on it was bizarre and distracting. You created two huge, obnoxious, childish graphics that focused on this small portion of my post rather than the substance of my post.
The thesis of my post, as you admit, is that Cohen “plagiarizes, alludes to, or pilfers from Longfellow.” I have no reason to back down from this thesis. In fact, your post did nothing to contradict that thesis. The two poems share the same phrase, “tower of song” and the same sentiment. That is substantial enough evidence to conclude that there is a likelihood that Cohen either plagiarized or alluded to Longfellow. I consider “plagiarize” and “pilfer” to be equivalent. .I consider an allusion to be an acknowledgement of inspiration. So, it is likely that Cohen was either plagiarizing or alluding to Longfellow. You make a conclusion about my post that I never make. I never conclude that Cohen plagiarized Longfellow. In fact, the title of my post has a question mark at the end of it, which signifies my belief that it is an open question.
Is it more likely that Cohen plagiarized or was inspired by/was alluding to Longfellow? I believe it is more likely that he was inspired by and was alluding to Longfellow. This is a reasonable conclusion. I also think that your logical thought process would bring you down the same avenue. It is an open question whether Cohen plagiarized and you have presented no evidence to close this question.
Furthermore, on my blog you left a comment. A portion of that comment said, “Other than the “tower of song” phrase, which, as you point out dates back at least to Dante’s Divine Comedia…” You misread what I wrote. The title of Longfellow’s poem, Mezzo Cammin, alludes to the first few lines from the Divine Comedia. However, Dante does not use the phrase “tower of song.” As far as I know, that phrase is a Longfellow invention.
I agree with your first footnote, namely that an educated student of poetry would recognize his plagiarism/allusion. I don’t dispute this. I claimed, “I wonder whether he figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering.” The logic of your footnote is poor because it assumes that I made an argument I did not make. My argument allows for the logic of your footnote when it says, “few members of a modern audience.” I specifically wrote “few” in order to account for students of poetry. Nevertheless, the point was that most people would not catch the plagiarism/allusion.
One of the larger points of my posts was to point out the connection and chain of poets throughout history. We see Dante tied to Longfellow tied to Cohen. We also see, as I mentioned, Guthrie tied to Springsteen (and to Dylan, of course). These connections usually occur in the form of allusions that make it clear that a certain phrase or sentiment is being borrowed or updated by the more modern poet. My dispute with Cohen is that he gives no such credit to Longfellow and that consider the phrase “Tower of Song” has become intimately associated with him that he ought to.
Before you assault someone’s argument, you ought to practice crafting more cogent arguments in order to make the assault potent. As it stands, your assault is impotent.
Also, please have the courage to blog under your real name, particularly when mindlessly assaulting someone you do not know.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 2 December 2008 at 3:39 pm:
My post specifically said, “I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes the ideas and even the precise words of Longfellow.” I am unsure of how this phrase is ambiguous or how it would differ from your interpretation of the evidence that I presented.
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
Comment by Joshua on 2 December 2008 at 3:52 pm:
Billy, I didn’t read your second to last exhaustingly long diatribe, but when you talk about being misinterpreted, perhaps it has something to do with your writing.
You wrote:
Cohen’s egotism also bothers me:
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
Your usage was part of the problem. You use a colon to link your commentary that Cohen’s egoism bothers you to these lyrics, which a reader would naturally think you were offering as support for the statement before the colon. The usage mavens at wikipedia describe the use of a colon as follows: “As a rule, however, a colon informs the reader that what follows proves and explains, or simply enumerates elements of what is referred to before.”
Instead of repeatedly insulting the reading comprehension of those who don’t get whatever point you intended to make, perhaps you should reread statements that are “misinterpreted” to see if you can figure out what gave your reader a different impression than what you intended. It’s rarely helpful to assume your reader is just too stupid to grasp your profound thought. Instead try to write more clearly, with an organization and usage that amplifies your point.
Go ahead and respond with an ad hominem attack. You know you want to.
Comment by Joshua on 2 December 2008 at 4:09 pm:
I read a little more of it Billy. There is a big difference between making an accusation that you alluded to something and that you plagiarized something. Plagiarism has a stigma, particularly for artists, so perhaps you should level that charge with caution. It may be more prudent to only suggest someone may be plagiarizing something when you have more support for the allegation.
Your defense that you used a question mark reminds me of this John Stewart skit:
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=7186
In general I think you need more than a short phrase, known to students of poetry, and a somewhat similar broad theme between a new work and the work the phrase was borrowed from, to rise to the level where it is fair to question whether or not an artist is plagiarizing. Most reasonable people would call this an allusion, which is why you’re catching so much hell from this guy.
I did like your post though. And I appreciate your introducing me to Cohen.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 2 December 2008 at 4:51 pm:
Josh,
It’s difficult to respond to you given that you didn’t write my lengthy clarification. I think that you’re confused about one thing.
I know how to use a colon Joshua. Thanks for the tip. In fact, what you said made a ton of sense. You wrote, “You use a colon to link your commentary that Cohen’s egoism bothers you to these lyrics, which a reader would naturally think you were offering as support for the statement before the colon.”
Ummmm….Yesssss? Yes, I did mean to say that Cohen’s egotism bothers me and I did intend for that quote to be used as support of an instance of when it bothers me. I don’t quite understand your point. I meant exactly what you think I meant. I didn’t mean something else. If you read my lengthy diatribe, what I said is that Cohen’s ego has absolutely nothing to do with the main point of my post. In fact, I don’t care at all whether he is egotistical and I believe that he has sufficient ability that he deserves to be egotistical.
I did not and I am not accusing Cohen of plagiarism. I am simply asking the question, “Did Cohen plagiarize or allude to Longfellow?” I don’t know what the answer is. You don’t know what the answer is. This DrH guy doesn’t know what the answer is. It is a legitimate question that probably only Cohen knows the answer to. Again, I think that it’s more likely an allusion or inspiration for Cohen, but normally when a poet makes an allusion or is inspired by a past author, he makes it more clear.
Comment by chrism on 2 December 2008 at 4:53 pm:
Joshua needs to stop blatantly doing all he can to be nice to the random people commenting here to try to get them to return.
Comment by Joshua on 2 December 2008 at 5:06 pm:
Chrism: I hope you never comment here again. So I’m nice to other people. Bite me.
BJM: While I don’t understand why you said you were bothered by his egoism if you don’t care about it, I’ll leave that alone for now.
The thesis of your post, to the extent it has one, is that it is an open question whether he is alluding to him or plagiarizing him. And here you say, essentially that only Cohen knows.
I do agree that it is a bit of a leap to assume your view that cohen is egoistical is linked to your question of whether he is a plagiarist. Our commenter botched that a bit on his blog. But I agree with him on this point: “I do know that charges of literary theft require support by far more substantial evidence than is presented in the referenced post.”
It seems a little light to toss around a word like “plagiarized.”
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 2 December 2008 at 5:26 pm:
I also agree that “charges of literary theft require support by far more substantial evidence…” Luckily, I’m not charging Cohen with anything. I am simply asking the question, “Did Cohen plagiarize or did he allude to Longfellow.”
There are two other options.
3) Cohen was not aware of Longfellow’s poem and this is a grand coincidence.
4) Cohen had read Longfellow’s poem some amount of time before he wrote Tower of Song and had forgotten about Longfellow’s poem. The poem then subconsciously stayed with Cohen and weeks, months or years later he wrote Tower of Song without consciously realizing that Longfellow inspired him.
Pingback by Did Nemoy Plagiarize or Allude to Tolkien? : Urbanagora on 2 December 2008 at 9:34 pm:
[...] not saying Leonard Nemoy is plagiarizing J.R.R. Tolkien, but following the logic of this post, it’s an open [...]
Comment by Marie on 3 December 2008 at 4:21 pm:
This blog showed up on my newsreader this morning which is set to all things Leonard Cohen. When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was happy to note the DrHGuy (well known in the Cohen community) made some headway in debunking these outrageous claims about Cohen. As Cohen fans, we are accustom to folks not knowing who Leonard is or dismissing him as depressing. But plagiarist?? The man who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? The man who received Canada’s highest honor of Companion in the Order of Canada? The man whose latest book of poetry, Book of Longing, was the first poetry book to reach number one on the best seller list in Canada? That man a plagiarist? Say it ain’t so. Well, it ain’t. Leonard Cohen’s work is studied at the highest level of academia and Cohen scholars have noted, discussed, analyzed and marveled at Cohen’s skills. Of course, these passages from Longfellow have been noticed, noted and discussed. I would direct you to the newsgroup -
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.music.leonard-cohen/browse_thread/thread/12c050b37cad2d1e/8612d963d9ac23e9?hl=en&q=longfellow&lnk=ol&#
and in particular the discussion of Longfellow, Donne and Shakespeare -
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.music.leonard-cohen/browse_thread/thread/12c050b37cad2d1e/484dc31d5e0361aa?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=longfellow#484dc31d5e0361aa
Finally, no discussion of this issue would be complete without mentioning one scholar in particular, Judith Fitzgerald, who has studied and written (and still writes) about the nuts and bolts and breathtaking beauty of Leonard’s work. She is an award-winning poet herself and a wildly gifted writer. Check out Notes Towards a Definition of a Masterpiece (http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/masterpiece.html). And if I have managed to peak your interest about Leonard Cohen, visit The Leonard Cohen Files (http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/) for everything you need to know about the man who just returned from a European concert tour where he earned acclaim for his “gift of a golden voice.”
Comment by tom on 9 December 2008 at 5:37 am:
Cohen knows Longfellow and you can find the traces of his poetry in other poems and songs. Also Dante all over Ten New Songs (see Judith Fitzgerald’s long essay on The Leonard Cohen Files), and Cavafy, and Frost and Stevenson in A Thousand Kisses Deep, and Mathew Arnold in Undertow, and Garcia Lorca of course, and Keats, and Shelley, and Lord Byron, and Irving Layton, and FR Scott, etc. etc. He works with literary heritage.
Comment by Todd on 12 December 2008 at 3:02 pm:
Hi,
I just wanted to bump this thread because I just noticed that the comment by “Marie” from 9 days ago was awaiting moderation because it contained too many links. I just wanted to make sure everyone saw it.
Comment by Joshua on 12 December 2008 at 4:14 pm:
Marie, thank you for providing us with a treasury of resources. What drew you to Cohen to begin with?
Todd, thanks so much for catching this comment!!
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 5 January 2009 at 11:37 am:
My concluding thought is that Cohen was probably not plagiarizing Longfellow. But given that I am a Cohen fan, I was severely disappointed when I learned that “Tower of Song” was not a Cohen original. I understand that songwriters do this sort of thing from time to time, but I think it’s unfortunate when more explicit credit is not given either in the lyrics of the song or in some kind of annotations to the song.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 5 January 2009 at 11:41 am:
Marie,
The resources you linked us to, so far as I can tell, have absolutely nothing to do with this conversation and do not advance your position in any way. Please let me know if I am mistaken about that.
Also, the things you said, that Cohen is generally well regarded and accomplished, do not relate in any way to your argument that Cohen did not plagiarize Longfellow. The logic of your argument was something like: “Cohen receives a lot of praise and sells a lot of books, therefore, he did not plagiarize Longfellow and I conclude this even though I’ve said nothing about the specifics of the two poems in question.”
Comment by Thonnathofags on 12 January 2009 at 12:24 am:
There are 5 houses in five different colors
In each house lives a different nationality.
These 5 owners drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.
No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.
The CLUES:
The Brit lives in the Red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane Drinks tea.
The Green House is on the left of the White House.
The Green House’s owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the Blue House.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
The QUESTION:
Who owns the fish?