Lenny Ain't So Bright

[miko2]

They say that timing is everything. Sometimes I think it's the most important thing about writing that I've learned -- how to set up a joke, how to arrange words so that there's a proper sense of space and timing, to make things funny or give them impact. You can study writing all you want, but you will never get far if you don't have a good sense of timing.

At least, that's how it seems to me. ^_^

So there's this song by Concrete Blonde called "Everybody Knows". It's actually a Leonard Cohen song, but I've never listened to the original. As sung by Janet Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, it goes like this:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

I've always loved this song. The way the lyrics speak in generalities until the last verse, which suddenly gets specific and you realize the singer is singing about being betrayed by her lover... that last part is perfectly set up. The last verse hits you upside the head, it surprises you and reveals a new dimension to the song that you weren't expecting. Like a good joke or a good short story, the ending spins you about and drops you on your head. It catches you by surprise.

At least it does for me. ^_^

I was listening to the Mariners game tonight, and in the 9th inning Kazuhiro Sazaki was pitching to one of Toronto's young batters. Dave Niehaus and Rick Rizz were saying how it was obvious that the hitter was sitting on a fastball, waiting for it, and instead he got curveballs and forkballs. And just as Niehaus was saying that he simply wasn't going to get a fastball from Sasaki, Kazu threw a fastball. And the batter was called out looking, because even he wasn't expecting a fastball by that point.

That's what a good short story, a good joke, or the above song does. It sets you up to expect one thing, then surprises you with something else.

So where am I going with this? I picked up a used copy of the greatest hits of Don Henley the other day. Henley used to be with the Eagles and has had a number of hits on his own. He knows how to write well. Perhaps his best song is "Boys Of Summer", one of those songs that will be played in the radio forever and ever. In it, he sings about the girl he loved in his past, and talks about getting her back and how his love will stay true, but in the final verse he admits that he's chasing dreams.... "Out on the road last night, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a cadillac, a little voice in my head said don't look back, you can never look back...."

That's a great line. It shows that Henley has a writer's sense of good timing. So I was really surprised when I listened to his version of "Everybody Knows", the song by Cohen that I like so much. In Henley's version, the "last" verse that begins "Everybody knows you love me baby" comes before the "second-to-last" verse, the one begining "And everybody knows it's now or never".

I was stupefied. That completely ruined the song for me. The last verse is the one with the punchline, why would you sing it earlier? I can't tell you how angry and annoyed I was at Henley's version, but when I got home I did some research, and it turns out Henley is singing it the way Cohen wrote it. In fact, Cohen's version has more verses that niether Henley nor Napolitano included, which come after what I thought were the last verses:

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows


Let me just say that, without even hearing Cohen's full version, I am 100% convinced that Napolitano's version is superior. She rearranged the song to give the final verse an impact that Cohen failed to achieve. And I know Cohen is considered a great songwriter, and I assume that's true, and certainly I think this song is well-written no matter how the verses are arranged, but to me it just shows that even a genius trips over his own feet once in a while. How could you not realize where the song should end? How could you not see the obvious punchline? Clearly Janet Napolitano did, and greatly improved the song as a result.

There's a short story, I think it's Asimov, although I can't find it at the moment. The gist of it was that a man was being exhiled to a planet that was not fit to live on... freezing cold winters, unbearably hot summers, wind that whipped and tore at you, torrential rains -- it was a hellish place, most people would rather die than be sent there. And the punchline to the story was that the man was from a colony on the moon, and was being exiled to earth.

So when it was first published, the editor said in his foreward "Hell is a state of mind..." and basically gave the whole punch line away. Why he did that, who knows? Maybe like Cohen he just didn't see the obvious.

I haven't been this disappointed to hear another version of a song I liked since I heard Bruce Springsteen's version of "Because The Night". This song is one of my favorite Patti Smith songs. Patti Smith was a punk poet and a very good (if unconventional) songwriter, and "Because The Night" was one of the most commercial songs she ever did, and one of their biggest hits. I wouldn't have ever picked up any Patti Smith Group cds if I hadn't heard this song way back when it first came out.

Anyway, Patti co-wrote this with Bruce Springsteen. I never liked Springsteen much, but he has one or two songs that at least show me that he can occasionally write good songs. My old roommate Darrell had one of his big greatest hits/live albumns, and since it had the Springsteen version of "Because The Night", I listened to it.

The two versions share the same melody and chorus, but apparently Smith and Springsteen wrote in their own lyrics, since his lyrics, aside from the chorus, are nothing like hers. And as I said, Patti Smith is a poet, and her song is beautiful, and Springsteen's version was merely sad and stupid.

Listening to Henley's version of "Everybody Knows" was almost as disappointing -- although he's much more listenable than Springsteen, in my opinion. It's even more disappointing to realize that the "stupid" version of the song is the original one.

But what can you say. Even Bob Dylan decided that Jimi Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" was superior to his original version, and later on he played it the way Hendrix did. ^_^

Anyway that's my rant for today. ^_^ Interesting note, both Henley's version and the version by Concrete Blonde were not taken from normal albumns of theirs... Henley's was for a Cohen tribute cd and then was included in his greatest hits cd, while the Concrete Blonde version was first done for the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack and then was added as an extra track on the cd-single for the song "Ghost Of A Texas Ladies Man" before finally being added to their "Still In Hollywood" best-of cd.