Sharon robinson alexandra leaving

Retrieve it. Get promoted. Powered by OnRad. In Lyrics. By Artist. Listen online. Sharon Robinson Sharon Robinson. Year: Views. Notify me of new comments via email. Cancel Report. Create a new account. Log In. Powered by CITE. Missing lyrics by Sharon Robinson? If Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell struggled to pull it off — the Irish titan and the Canadian goddess both tried it on with WB Yeats, without conspicuous success — where does that leave the rest of humankind?

As for The Bangles … even they came up short, hard though it is to believe. How Arnold would have chuckled. Or maybe not. We must, in the end, turn to Leonard Cohen, which is no bad thing. If we have to turn to anyone in our moments of musical need, it may as well be him. In Alexandra Leavingone of the two or three best tracks he ever recorded despite the mind-boggling failure of many list-o-maniacs to place it among the best 20 or 30, Cohen accepts the most daunting set of challenges: to take a seriously good poem on a classical theme and reshape the subject matter without losing its essence downsizing and universalising it at one and the same timebefore moulding it into a form capable of sitting comfortably within the unforgiving structural dimensions of modern song — verse, chorus, refrain and so on.

His triumph is overwhelming, to the extent that he gives this particular piece of music a definition all of its own: the poetry of poetry. How did he do it? The poetic inspiration for the song is The God Abandons Antonywritten shortly before the outbreak of the Great War by Constantine P Cavafy, a Greek who spent the vast majority of his 70 years in Alexandria, the second city of Egypt.

Composed as a dramatic monologue, something of a Cavafy speciality, its 19 unrhymed, unforced lines paint us a picture of the Roman general Mark Antony at a subterranean point in his fortunes. Under siege in Alexandria and facing imminent catastrophe, he imagines that the retinue of the god who has forsaken him is leaving town.

Sharon robinson alexandra leaving

As one long prepared, and full of courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Have some dignity, man. The departing god is the God of Love and we see him leaving town with Alexandra on his shoulder. Some image, that. Inquiring faces soon appear at the entrance to the room. It offers a glimpse of the night in Alexandria, quiet and dejected, in anticipation of a coming tumult.

None of this is new to Robinson, who knows the origins of the song. From Plutarch, through Cavafy and on to Cohen, a timeless strand has been woven. Robinson explains the mechanics of collaborating with Cohen, how a poem becomes a song. Her mother, Mildred, who recently passed away, adored Cohen and would often bake him a large fruit cake.

So she did. Work begins with a verse or two that Cohen presents her with, on paper. Robinson reads it, they talk about melodic possibilities. Rarely, if ever, do they talk about the meaning of the words. This desire not to cross a line, to respect Cohen as an artist, is an endearing constant during our conversation. It feels protective. A single song can take a year or more to emerge.

Robinson takes a poem home and studies it. The connections between the song and the original poem are close. An image forms, like a picture with music afloat in the background. I have many questions, but she firmly resists over-intellectualisation. Yet the structure is closely related to the number of syllables in a line, which in turn dictates the set-up of the melody.

In this sense, she works backwards, from a culminating idea towards the front of the song. A bit like an advocate in court trying to persuade a judge, I suggest. Sharon smiles, generously. Yes, as a songwriter she wants the songs to be heard and understood, to take the listener on a trip. You want them with you from the beginning to the end.

The process inverts the usual rule for mainstream pop music, which is to start with the music. We return to the kitchen scene. She offers ideas for the melody, maybe more than one. Then she records one. There are a range of reactions. In the end, I just wait, for 10 minutes. The collaboration is based on a particular affinity, the word she chooses to describe a certain kind of connection between two people.

There is, too, a sense of shared vulnerability that infuses the songs. During a conversation that meanders around Paris, the balance in their relationship occasionally comes into view.