Roberta Flack's 'Suzanne' interpretation

[tomsakic]

I knoe this song in Johnny Cash's version

[Andrew (Darby)]

Tchocolatl, I agree, "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is a great song of her's! I also have always loved "Killing Me Softly With His Song" (partly for sentimental reasons that go way back to 1973) and "Jesse". In fact there's little between them for me - three equally inpressive and emotionally evocative songs!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

[lizzytysh]

OH!!! I FORGOT about "Jesse"!!! Yes, yes, yes!!! "Killing Me Softly" is great, too, but I've always preferred most the other two.

[Tchocolatl]

Tm, try Roberta's.

Jesse? I don't know this song. 'Have to check, now. Killing me soflty is wow also.

For her cover of Suzanne, I'm not prompt to listen to something when somebody goes "it-is-bad". I'll pass my turn, then, until, maybe, I trip on it by chance.

[lizzytysh]

In fact, I may have misspoke myself ~ as "Jesse" may well be my favourite Roberta Flack song. I remember thinking that for a very long time, after I heard it. It's now been a long time since I've heard it.

[rayc]

Hi,
Interesting ideas. Can't say I'm enarmoured of the Flack version.
Have any of you heard the Fairport Convention version from their 1st LP? If so what thoughts on such a trippy excursion?
Cheers
rayc

[lightning]

If it's the same song Joan Baez sings it on Diamonds and Rust I think. "Jesse some home, there's a hole in the bed...etc."

[lizzytysh]

Yes, that's the one, Lightning. A sublime song. One which really penetrates when feeling loneliness for a loved one gone.

[lightning]

Did Janis Ian write it?

[lizzytysh]

Yes, she did, Lightning. Great song .

Apparently a quote of hers is, "'Jesse' proved I was a real writer." A comment about her, "The second contained 'At Seventeen' ... Janis Ian is truly a 'musician's musician'." Not sure who said that one, though. Not enough time to follow the link and hunt it down in the text. Maybe James Ian?

[lightning]

Her first album is my favorite. Janey's Blues, and the unforgettable anti-racist song hose title I can't remember at the moment.

[lizzytysh]

I've never heard that album.

[lightning]

The anti-racist song is called "Society's Child". It's a "Guess who's coming to dinner " scenario. A girl brings home a nice black guy and her parents forbid it. "They say I can't see you anymore, baby. I can't see you anymore." Great song. She was a young teenager when she wrote it. When she came out as a lesbian someone quipped, "What's the matter? Black guys aren't good enough for her anymore."

[Fljotsdale]

I see Suzanne as a beautiful and wise woman a sage. He is captivated with her, her beauty her intelligence her warmth. He knows he can never “have” her, and she knows she can never "have" him.
The mirror is a metaphor for seeing yourself through others?
Roberta Flack's interpretation is very bizarre to me.

In the Song of Leonard Cohen by Harry Rasky, Cohen said he was simply narrating actual events. He knew the girl Suzanne, and she really did 'feed him tea and oranges' etc. He said there was no sex involved in the occasion. Jesus came in naturally in the second verse, because there is a church dedicated to sailors close to where Suzanne lived, and that the whole thing grew naturally. Suzanne gave him the 'seed'.

As for the mirror, though Cohen didn't mention it in the interview, it is pretty obvious from the context of the song, imo, that Suzanne was holding up the 'mirror' of her own vision of life for Leonard to look into, not a literal mirror.

But I guess this other singer can interpret it how she likes, lol!

Heh - I guess if LC ever looked in here and read some of the stuff we write, he'd die laughing, LOL!

To quote from T S Eliot's Prufrock:

"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all."

[Grantusm]

"Suzanne" is perhaps my favourite of Leonard Cohen's songs. I was first introduced to it by Judy Collins (as many were), and there is a video floating around of them singing it together back in 1967.

I first heard Roberta Flack's version many years ago, and loved what she did with it - it's a long jam by a band of very talented musicians, and they take it "out there" a bit, then bring it back. I'm sure they could've gone further with it, but this was a popular thing to do in the 70s; follow the groove of the song and reinterpret it. It's a free-flowing jam - nothing too creative or showy, but seeing the video again, it brought back how enjoyable the music of that time was and the joy musicians took in immersing themselves in a song, stretching its boundaries without significantly altering it's shape. I think Flack's version does just that, and it's a pleasure to watch/listen to. Granted, it's not for everyone, but if you sit and give it your attention and let your ears really listen, it's very pleasurable.

Now as far as her (mis)interpretation of the lyrics, I found this forum after watching that video and wondering if anyone took issue with her introduction. She definitely focused on one small line and ran with it. I always took the line "while Suzanne holds the mirror" as her showing him these things (soggy heroes, leaning children, etc.) and holding up a mirror of the world to the young poet, allowing for deeper "reflection." I can see where she might have seen it as vanity but I don't believe that's what Leonard Cohen was describing.

Perhaps it reminded her of someone she'd encountered or knew. Perhaps she was dealing with that aspect of human behaviour (she did donate a great deal of time to charitable causes in the 70s, so it might have been the "lens" through which she saw Suzanne).

Those were heady times of poetry, music, and awareness of social injustices. Poetry was widely read, and music discussed, and interpreted daily, and this take on the song could have been the product of such a conversation, flavoured by the hot topics of the day. Also, poetry and music were often received through the filters of certain substances, which can cause one to fixate on particular aspects of a song or poem rather than see the whole.

In addition, personal meaning and understanding are not static - our minds are always growing with our experiences; what we think about a work of art at one point can alter when we encounter it later on. The video of Roberta Flack's performance, although captured forever (or as long as the media lasts) is only a snapshot of a moment in time: It's what she said one night before a performance. She may have understood the song in a different light the next time she performed it, or further down the line.

Anyway, that's my take.