Talk:Famous Blue Raincoat

Page history
When I moved the page here the history got lost. The following people worked on the page beforehand:


 * 22:18, 6 December 2005 . . Hattrem
 * 21:59, 5 December 2005 . . Shervinafshar
 * 09:59, 14 September 2005 . . Janetmck (Wikified, tidied, added album info.)
 * 09:51, 11 September 2005 . . RHaworth
 * 09:50, 11 September 2005 . . RHaworth ("Famous blue raincoat" has been moved to Famous blue raincoat.)
 * 19:59, 10 September 2005 . . 80.111.173.235

Maybe an administrator can undelete Famous blue raincoat in order to conserve the author history, copy the contents of this article there, delete this page, and then move Famous blue raincoat back here? – Hattrem 00:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I have fixed this. All revisions are undeleted and reside at this title. &mdash;  F REAK OF N URxTURE  ( [ TALK ] )  15:21, Dec. 20, 2005


 * Thank you for fixing this! – Hattrem 17:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

No mention of Scientology?
I'm going to refrain from adding a section in myself, as someone may object, but don't you think some mention should be made of the song's obvious reference to Scientology?

"Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair. She said that you gave it to her. That night that you planned to go clear. Did you ever go clear?"

Going clear is a process that Scientologists undergo to get magical powers. This has never been confirmed by Leonard Cohen, but the majority of people I've met have agreed with this interpretation of this section of the song.


 * I guess he means that he (the man Cohen is writing to) has planned being sincere with his own couple, or/and that she (Cohen's lover) explains everything to Cohen himself. I don't think he's messing a love letter with religion, honestly. Ictlogist 15:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hard to say, since it's a poem and not a biography, but the linked analysis does point out that Cohen spent some time with Scientology, as he himself has said in interviews like this one. I don't know that I'd call a possible allusion an "obvious" reference to Scientology, but neither would I rule the possibility out. For what it's worth, having "magical powers" isn't how a Scientologist would describe the state of being clear.— OtherDave 03:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the Scientology reference is pretty obvious. Last-ditch clingings to religion are a recurring theme in Leonard's songs.  Death Rehearsal Rag provides multiple examples... joining the Rosicrucians etc. Gronky (talk) 04:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

An Interpretation
This song is a letter of reconciliation to an old friend who once had a drug-addled affair with the author’s wife. The author offers forgiveness and wants reassurance that his friend is doing better, “living for nothing now” (instead of living for cocaine).

At the time of the affair, the friend, described as a “thin gypsy thief”, had a serious cocaine problem indicated by the line “You’ve been to the station to meet every train” (“Riding the train” is slang for doing cocaine). In the depths of his addiction, he was looking old, wearing the same clothes all the time until they started to fray. He had worn out his once incredibly loyal girlfriend, who had finally left him. (Lili Marlene is a famous German love song about an heroically loyal girlfriend waiting for her man to get back from war).

The author refers to his old friend as “my brother, my killer”, indicating that he and Jane shared cocaine with the friend on a number of occasions. (In other words, offering the cocaine was an act of friendship, but cocaine can kill.) Eventually, Jane started doing “flake” (also slang for cocaine) with the friend a lot, and got involved with him sexually, as expressed by the lines: And you treated my woman to a flake of your life And when she came back she was nobody's wife. At the end of the affair, determined to leave town and clean up his life, and having no other possessions left to give Jane to remember him by, the friend gives her a lock of his hair.

As much as the affair hurt the author, and as much as he disapproved of the excessive drug use, in retrospect he admits that for whatever reason, the affair was ultimately good for Jane, helping her through a rough time. He invites his friend to come for a visit saying, “Your enemy (cocaine) is sleeping, and his woman (Jane) is free.” This is to reassure his friend that returning to New York will not ignite a relapse, especially since Jane has stayed clean.

Note 1: Much has been made of Leonard Cohen’s use of the word “clear” instead of “clean” in the song. I agree that his word choice may have been affected by his brush with Scientology, but I don’t believe that this implies that the friend in the song has joined the Scientologists. Rather, Cohen was simply using the word in the same way a Scientologist might. “You planned to go clear” means “You planned to clear your life of all the junk (drugs, etc.) which is holding you back.”

Note 2: I believe that Cohen’s protestation that he doesn’t remember who or what the song is about exactly is a cop out. Like many artists, he doesn’t want to alienate listeners who have developed their own deeply personal interpretations of his songs by telling them what the “right” one is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.175.117.42 (talk) 03:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

An Alternative Interpretation
The 30 November 2007 interpretation is very interesting, but to my ears, the song is a little simpler...

Rather than being about a love triangle, I think it may have been about a previous relationship of the letter writer's (LW) that was ended by a friend of the LW (the Recipient). Jane knew the recipient of the letter, perhaps was a mutual friend ("Jane came by with a lock of your hair", "Jane's awake, she sends her regards" and "If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me" imply that Jane knew the recipient at least a little independently), and is the current wife of the LW ("when she came back she was nobody's wife" suggests that the ex did not become the LWs wife, but that someone else has).

That previous relationship had not been a healthy one, probably mostly the LWs fault ("his woman is free [...] thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes, I thought it was there for good, so I never tried."), and the recipient had persuaded the ex to leave the LW ("you treated my woman to a flake of your life").

The LW and the recipient had become estranged as a result ("I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I'm glad you stood in my way") and the recipient had moved away, though this may have had nothing to do with the estrangement, ("I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert"). Indeed, it seems that the recipient was always a little eccentric, ("You'd been to the station to meet every train and you came home without Lili Marlene" and "I see you there with the rose in your teeth, one more thin gypsy thief" both seem more literal than figurative to me - as though the recipient had expected to meet a loved one at the station with the rose between his teeth - in the song Lili Marlene, there is a line "Give me a rose to show how much you care, Tie to the stem a lock of golden hair", perhaps the lock of hair Jane has was given to her by the disappointed recipient after that incident, perhaps when moving to the desert and clearing out his belongings as part of making a new start).

While the letter is a little melancholy, it does not seem that the LW is reminiscing about a former lover of Jane's since the mentions of her seem to be minor asides. --SimonHolzman (talk) 03:52, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Lili Marlene
I'm not sure I understand the cocaine reference as indicated previously, but I'm pleased to see that someone else has agreed with the reference to Lili Marlene. My father and I spent several years trying to figure out the reference to Lili Marlene, and I finally figured out that it was referring to a poem written by a soldier to his true love, Lili Marlene, which later was made into a song and sung famously by Marlene Dietrich. I think the line "You'd been to the station to meet every train, you came home alone without Lili Marlene" means that the person the letter has been written to has been around the block, with all sorts of women (including the author's wife/girlfriend), and has never been able to find his own true love. I named my daughter Lili Marlene as a reminder of the many hours my dad and I spent discussing this song, as we did many songs of Leonard Cohen, one of the greatest songwriters ever.

Which "Clinton Street" is he talking about?

 * "New York is cold but I like where I'm living,


 * There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening

But there are loads of Clinton Streets in New York. (OpenStreetMap gives me 192!)

Anyone know which one he's refering to?

Someone once thought of making an article about a Clinton Street, but it got deleted and there's no way to know if this is the one with music all through the evening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Clinton_Street Gronky (talk) 04:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Friendly wikipedian User:LeadSongDog pointed me to this article:
 * Latinos began to refashion the neighborhood in the 1960’s and 70’s, transforming Clinton Street into the commercial heart of Loisaida, as the Lower East Side was known familiarly. Along this rollicking little strip, women gossiped in Spanish inside beauty shops, and men wearing colorful guayaberas sat on milk crates outside storefronts. The Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen, who lived in a Clinton Street loft in the early 70’s, memorably described the area in his song “Famous Blue Raincoat”: “There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.” But by the 1980’s, Clinton Street was so crime-ridden that drug dealers plied their trade in broad daylight.
 * FWIW. Gronky (talk) 00:25, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Axel Jensen
I'm going to remove this recently added section because it is uncited, contradicts some of the cited material in the article and is in need of trimming/copyediting but with some work and reliable sources may be worthy of inclusion:

"The song is written to the Norwegian writer Axel Jensen (a friend of Leonard Cohen and the previous husband of Marianne as in "So long, Marianne"). It focus on the relationship between Leonard Cohen, Jane and Axel Jensen and how this had evolved and ended. There are several references to Axel in this song. The most obvious is the blue raincoat - a reference to Axel Jensen's raincoat. Another clear reference is the reference to Axel Jensen's travel/stay in Tamarasset where Axel spent his time writing the novel "Ikaros" - hence, the lines: "I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert. You're living for nothing now. I hope you're keeping some kind of record". Axel Jensen is constantly referred to in the song (e.g., "the lock of your hair") and with specific orientation around Axel Jensen's relationship with Jane, and how Jane and him had "planned to go clear", but in reality, that Axel hadn't come clear and still hoped that he and Jane could be together (i.e., the question: "did you ever go clear?"). However, with Axel being away for so long (and coming back from Tamarasset now looking "so much older" and with the "famous blue raincoat torn"), Jane became the woman of Leonard. Thus, the ending of the song."

Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Schubert?
The melody and chord progressions of this song bear a lot of resemblance to Schubert's Ständchen; given that the English translation of the song's title is "Serenade," there might be some thematic connections as well. Could someone look into this?

50.67.84.245 (talk) 04:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Schubert followup
Can we get the name of the musicologist who was said by Leonard to have testified against the phrase's originality? Arlo James Barnes 00:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)