"I'm Your Fan" also features the
definitive cover of "Hallelujah", for my money, but if you liked Rufus Wainwright's or K.D. Lang's versions, you might not like this one.
It's a quiet, humble little performance by John Cale accompanying himself on the piano.
Why oh why oh why do so many so-called artists approach this song with the
attitude of, "well, let's see how many people I can blow away with my
soaring rendition of this esteemed song!"
Unfortunately, I can't trace the
origin of this story, but here it is: Nick Cave was asked to do a cut
for the 1991 Cohen Tribute album "I'm Your Fan". But he didn't
want to. But he loved Leonard Cohen, so he had to.
This is not the same as the more
mainstream tribute 1995 album "Tower of Song", which featured some
regrettable and embarrassing choices (Don Henley singing "Everybody Knows",
Elton John butchering "I'm Your Man", Billy Joel singing "Light as a
Breeze". Now that I mention it-- how can any album with a Don
Henley cut on it be a tribute to anything?)
Where was I? Oh yes-- Nick
Cave did not like tribute albums. He thought they were tacky and
tasteless and, you know, Don Henleyesque. But he loved Leonard Cohen.
So he showed up at the studio and then took his band to a bar across the
street and got everybody totally smashed and then came back into the studio
and worked up "Tower of Song". Apparently, he did several versions and
the engineers later patched them altogether.
I was not impressed, the first time I heard it. Or the second or third. It was there in the
middle of an album that I enjoyed very much, otherwise. And then a
funny thing happened. The first I remember of it was this: I
began listening for the belch. Yes, about 2/3's of the way through
Nick Cave's cover of "Tower Song", he lets go one very loud, ornery, rude
belch. Then I began to listen more carefully to this whacked out
pastiche of bizarre interpretations-- one minute he's Elvis, the next he's
Hank Williams, then Heavy Metal, then Lou Reed...
It's really quite charming.
It's simultaneously off-putting and embracing, passionate and excoriating.
It's a throw-back to Cohen himself, in his old "Dress Rehearsal Rag" days.
It's a paean to pure unbridled passion and spirit and despair, and a great
party song.
