Concrete Blonde – Everybody Knows

I named my blog Who Knew? almost exactly one year ago.  I had no idea how aptly I had titled the blog and as a year passes it reinforces within me a certain innate ability to honestly say “I have no idea what the future holds.”

I am someone who lives in the day, which has it’s distinct positives i.e. I am very spontaneous and most of my travels have occurred very spur of the moment, and it’s devastating drawbacks.  It is who I am however and I make no apologies or excuses, it is how I live.

Things tend to come full circle in life so this post features a song called Everybody Knows by a legendary performer Leonard Cohen.

Cohen rose to the opportunity this audience represented by releasing two consecutive albums, I’m Your Man (1988) and The Future (1992), that not only rank among the finest of his career, but that perfectly capture the texture of particularly complicated times. Cohen had long documented the high rate of casualties in the love wars, so the profound anxieties generated by the AIDS crisis were no news to him. Songs like “Ain’t No Cure for Love,” the wryly titled “I’m Your Man” and, most explicitly, “Everybody Knows” (“Everybody knows that the Plague is coming/Everybody knows that it’s moving fast/Everybody knows that the naked man and woman – just a shining artifact of the past”) depict Cohen surveying the contemporary erotic battleground and reporting on it with characteristic perspective, insight and wisdom.

I first heard the song in a movie called “Pump Up The Volume”  in 1990 and it was performed by the band Concrete Blonde.  Later I learned it’s origins and became a Leonard Cohen fan.  It came at a time when everything was changing, I was going off to college and my senior year in high school was marked by a clinical depression which almost prevented me from going off to University.  Thankfully I was able to get through it and I remember listening to this song on repeat in my car almost compulsively.  I think it quite fits the brooding and scared teen I had become for the song is not very hopeful, and in many ways very true.

So here I am 17 years and half a lifetime later posting my first post-hiatus entry into this blog.  Who Knew? the poem I wrote asks many questions.  Everybody Knows offers many answers, some all too true and others can be debated.  I know though that it evokes for me a great deal of truth, some fear and it does so in a very poetic fashion.  Leonard Cohen wrote what he knew.  I say who knows?

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 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

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That’s how it goes

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

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

Leonard Cohen