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The title is from a Leonard Cohen song called “Closing Time.” The lyrics, when applied to our problems of the moment, can be devastating. The song is about a man and his woman and the mood of the crowd—but the thoughts speak to our real problems in this society now (the bar room), and our interactions with the Criminality of everything to do with this society and the world right now. This might cause some to think a bit deeper than Cohen’s words might otherwise suggest.
“Ah we’re drink’n and we’re dance’n,
And the Johnny Walker wisdom’s run’n high
~
All the women tear their blouses off;
And the men they dance, on the polka dots,
And its partner found and its partner lost,
And it’s Hell to pay when the fiddler stops ~
It’s Close’in Time!”
These are the times when reason is blinded by an uncommon fear of everyday things: Things that too many don’t really want to understand; it is far easier to just party-on, to focus on the music and just forget that you know what tomorrow’s-tomorrow will bring. This place that used to be home is now a public tavern where nothing matters but continuing to cater to appearances and to wallow in the fun—in a place where tomorrow can be delayed at least until the sunrise – maybe.
It’s Close’in Time and the Moon is swim’n naked.
And the summer night is fragrant, With a mighty expectation of relief
So we struggle and we stagger down the stakes,
And up the ladder to the Tower - where the blessed hours chime. . .
The world has gone mad, yet each of us must find our own way through the ruins, if there is to be a tomorrow in our lives. Yet when we attempt to find salvation, whether in a bottle, a religion, or in bed, nothing much ever seems to really answer all those questions that we seem too afraid to really ask. The song continues:
And I swear it happened just like this:
A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
And the gates of love won’t budge an inch;
Can’t say much has happened since – it’s Close’in Time.
I loved you for your beauty,
That doesn’t make a fool of it, and you were in it for your beauty too.
And I loved you for your body,
There’s a voice that sounds like down to me,
Declaring, declaring, declaring,
That your body’s really, really, ready
And I loved you when our love was best,
And I loved you when there’s noth’n left but sorrow,
And a sense of Overtime
If the nation is part of the love of one’s life, then the words of the song can take on a very different light – given what’s happening to most Americans right now: when there’s “noth’in left but sorrow” for the values that we thought were ours, as the USA goes into Overtime with the slim thought that maybe World War III can still be avoided—but that possibility shrinks, with the passing of every day that we do not act, to take down this government. As the song says:
Yeah, I missed you since our place got wrecked,
By the winds of Change and the weeds of Sex;
Looks like Freedom but it Seems like Death,
It’s something inbetween I guess –
It’s Close’n Time.
How much clearer can it get: We’ve screwed this world up royally and there is no going back—we must finish this nightmare and eliminate the Outlaws, if we are ever to be able to dream again. Cohen continues:
Yeah we’re drink’n and we’re dance’n
But there’s noth’in really happen’n,
And the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday Night,
And my very close companion gets me fallen, gets me laugh’n,
She’s a hundred, but she’s wear’n something tight!
And I lift my glass to the awful truth –
Which can’t reveal to the ears of youth,
Except to say that it isn’t worth a dime,
And the whole damn place goes crazy—twice,
And it’s one for the devil and once for the price,
But the boss don’t like those dizzy heights:
We’re busted in the blinding lights of Closing Time
Busted – in the Blinding Light – of Closing Time. . .
What we have become is “complicit” in such a massive criminal enterprise that we seriously don’t want to know the depths of what we have allowed to happen in our names. This is global, it’s sick, and it cannot succeed because the blinding lights of closing time will not leave anyone -- anywhere to hide. For some this hologram of Empire is heady stuff, but this is as hollow as our “right” to exercise “Manifest Destiny” over the whole human race, has always been.
We’re out of money, and time and ‘credibility.’ All of that has long since deserted everything associated with the USA. Those that have been propping up this charade by buying into the markets for quick and easy profits need to dump those stocks, and take a long hard look at the fact that there is no longer any future for this nation; and by extension the people that claim this place as home. Because
“. . . I lift my glass to the awful truth –
Which can’t reveal to the ears of youth,
Except to say that it isn’t worth a dime,”
Any people that refuse to face the truth of what they have become, (0ver the last 200 plus years) cannot possibly be long for this world, because the world knows what we are and they want no more of it: however we choose to phrase whatever we plan to do: The world knows that they will always lose, so long as we are ruled by our current Owners.
The only people that still don’t seem to get it are the citizens of the United States. It’s five minutes till Closing Time, and soon we’ll all be busted in the glaring lights of CLOSING TIME. (*)
So instead of “lifting a glass to the awful truth” Why not turn this nightmare on its head and begin to shut it down from the
inside - like the people that we say we believed in once: but they KNEW they had to fight for what they wanted; while we seem to have forgotten all of that!
“Closing Time”: From the 2CD set - The Essential Leonard Cohen,
Columbia Records
Jim Kirwan
NOTES:
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