ABOUT LEONARD COHEN, LORCA, AND THE LITTLE VIENNESE WALZ

(Leonard Cohen)

Side by side you have here my fairly literal translation of Lorca's LITTLE VIENNESE WALZ and Cohen's free translation for his song TAKE THIS WALZ. 

Following that, there are a handful of quotes in which Cohen explains the importance of Lorca in his life, and the genesis of his song.

LITTLE VIENNESE WALZ

 

TAKE THIS WALZ

 

In Vienna, there are ten girls,

a shoulder for death to sob on

and a wood for stuffed pidgeons.

There’s a fragment of the morning

in the museum of frost.

There’s a drawing room with a thousand windows.

Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women

There’s a shoulder where Death comes to cry

There’s a lobby with 900 windows

There’s a tree where the doves go to die

There’s a piece that was torn from the morning

And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

 

Ay ,ay, ay, ay!

Take this walz with the closed mouth.

 

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this walz, take this walz

Take this walz with the clamp on its jaws

This walz, this walz, this walz,

of its own self, of death, and of brandy

dipping its tail in the sea.

 

I love you, I love you, I love you,

with the armchair and the dead book,

down the melancholy hallway,

in the dark attic of the lily,

on our bed of the moon

and in the dance the turtle dreams.

 

Oh, I want you, I want you, I want you

On a chair with a dead magazine

In the cave at the tip of the lily

In some hallway where love’s never been

On a bed where the moon has been sweating

In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

 

Ay, ay, ay, ay!

Take this walz with the broken waist.

 

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this walz, take this walz

Take its broken waist in your hand

 

This walz, this walz, this walz, this walz

With its very own breath of brandy and death

Dragging its tail in the sea

 

In Vienna there are four mirrors

where your mouth and the echoes play.

There’s a death for piano

that paints the boys blue.

There are beggars on the rooftops.

There are fresh garlands of tears.

 

There’s a concert hall in Vienna

Where your mouth had a thousand reviews

there’s a bar where the boys have stopped talking

They’ve been sentenced to death by the blues

Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture

With a garland of freshly cut tears?

 

Ay, ay, ay, ay!

Take this walz which is dying in my arms.

 

For I love you, I love you, love of mine,

in the attic where the children play,

dreaming old lights of Hungary

through the buzz of the cool afternoon,

seeing sheep and lilies of snow

through the dark silence of your forehead.

 

Ay, ay, ay, ay!

Take this “I’ll love you forever” walz.

 

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this walz, take this walz

With its “I’ll never forget you, you know”

 

This walz, this walz, etc

 

In Vienna I’ll dance with you

with a head of the river disguise.

Look at the banks I have of hyacinths.

I will leave my mouth between your legs,

my soul in photographs and tiger lilies,

and in the dark waves of your walk

I want, love of mine, love of mine, to leave,

violin and grave, the ribbons of the walz.

 

And I’ll dance with you in Vienna

I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise

The hyacinth wild on my shoulder

My mouth on the dew of your thighs

And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,

with the photographs there, and the moss

And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty

My cheap violin and my cross

 

And you’ll carry me down on your dancing

To the pools that you lift on your wrist

Oh my love, oh my love

Take this walz, take this walz

It’s yours now. It’s all that there is

 

 "With the Lorca poem, the translation took 150 hours, just to get it into English that resembled - I would never presume to say duplicated - the greatness of Lorca's poem.  It was a long, drawn-out affair, and the only reason I would
even attempt it is my love for Lorca. I loved him as a kid; I named my
daughter Lorca, so you can see this is not a casual figure in my life."

L. Cohen, Interview "Your Flesh" Magazine, 1992

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pilgraeme/take_this_waltz.htm

 Vienna 11/05/88

Last year I had the great honour to translate into English a poem by the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca,a man who effectively ruined my life when I was fifteen. I found a book of his in a secondhand bookstore. I read the lines, "I want to pass through the arches of Elvira to see your thighs and begin weeping." And for the next thirty years, I was looking for the arches of Elvira, I was looking for those thighs, I was looking for my tears. I'm glad I've forgotten all that and I could revenge him with this act of homage, by translating one of his great poems into clumsy English. Take this Waltz,take this waltz.

 Reijkavik 24/06/88

Here of all places I don't have to explain how I fell in love with the poet Federico Garcia Lorca. I was 15 years old and I was wandering through the bookstores of Montreal and I fell upon one of his books,and I opened it,and my eyes saw those lines "I want to pass through the Arches of Elvira,to see her thighs and begin weeping". I thought "This is where I want to be"... I read alone "Green I want you green "I turned another page "The morning threw fistfulls of ants in your face" I turned another page "Her thighs slipped away like school of silver minnows". I knew that I have had come home. So it is with a great sense of gratitude that I am able to repay my debt to Federico Garcia, at least a corner, a fragment, a crumb, a hair, an electron of my debt by dedicating this song, this translation of his great poem "Little Viennese Waltz", "Take This Waltz".

London May 1993

Thank you very much friends for this very warm reception this evening, we really appreciate it. You know, I named my daughter Lorca, after the great Spanish poet. I was really pleased when she put a ring in her nose. I was delighted at the age of 18 when she dyed her hair blue. Later on it was.... you can understand a father's pride....when she put a stud through her tongue.....(laughs)...She lives within the true spirit of the poet. and I love her for it. It was with a great sense of anxiety and trepidation that I began to translate one of the great poems of Federico Garcia Lorca and it has been a great source of pleasure to me to receive a letter from his sister congratulating me on my tiny hommage to this great poet's work. Take This Waltz.

 

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