“SUZANNE” by Leonard Cohen

 NOTA IMPORTANTE PARA TRADUCIR UNA PALABRA SITÚA EL PUNTERO SOBRE ELLA Y PULSA SOBRE EL BOTÓN IZQUIERDO DEL RATÓN. LUEGO PULSA SOBRE LAS BANDERAS PARA ELEGIR EL IDIOMA DE DESTINO

- Hello, I´m Keith Washington

- And I´m Kathy Raven

- And this is Pedagogical Pop

-  Where we explain the words of a pop song.

- The song “Suzanne”

- Sung by Leonard Cohen, it is a love song.

- It´s about a special girl and her name ,of course,  is Suzanne.

- And what is so special about this girl?

- She is warm and she is kind and she has a special way of understanding people.

 - And the man who sings this song wants to tell us what a different kind of person she is. Just listen:

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she´s half crazy

But that´s why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges

That come all the way from China

And just when you want to tell her

That you have no love to give her

Then she gets you on her wavelength

And she lets the river answer

That you´ve always been her lover

Suzanne takes you down, she leads you, shows you the way

- to her place near the river.When we say her place we mean her house.

I can see there Kathy, “Kathy! Are you coming to my place on Saturday?”

- And he means her  house, the place where she lives.

- And Suzzane´s place is near the river, close to the river, by the river.

- And because it is close to the river you can hear the boats as they pass by, as they go by.

- You can hear the boats as  they pass by like this: (sound of a boat).

- You can spend the night beside her

- You  can spend money or you can spend time, and that´s it, when we say “spend time” we mean pass time

- So you can pass the night beside Suzanne: “beside=at her side, beside her”.

- You can spend the night at her side.

- Buth Keith, he said she´s half crazy.

- Oh yeah, normally crazy means a little mad, slightly insane, MAD!!! Ha,ha ha!!!!

- Why he wants to spend the night beside her?

- He doesn´t really mean she is insane in that way, he means he likes her because she is different, she´s unusual.

-But that´s what he says, isn´t it?

- Yes , he says I know she´s half crazy but that´s why I want to be there

- What´s so different about her?

-  Well, she gives him unusual food

- Like tea and oranges

-  Tea and oranges that come all the way from China

- Do they really come from China?, it´s a long way

- China is very nice, very unusual

- So Chinese oranges must be rather mature…

- Yeah, she´s a different kind of a girl and that´s why he wants to be with her, listen

(The song is sung again)

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she´s half crazy

But that´s why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges

That come all the way from China

Suzzane takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she´s half crazy

But that´s why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges

That come all the way from China

And just when you want to tell her

That you have no love to give her

Then she gets you on her wavelength

And she lets the river answer

-         That you´ve always been her loverWell,she is an understanding girl, isn´t she?

-         Why?

-         Well, just when he means to tell her…

-         At that very moment, when he´s going to tell her that he doesn´t love her, he has no love to give her.

-         Oh yes, she gets you on her wavelength

-         Exactly, because ‘wavelength’ is a radio term, for example, 10.88 kilohertz is 276 metres medium waves and 12.95 kilohertz is 276 metre medium waves.

-         But here it means something different, am I wrong? She is not trying to syntonize the radio.

-         Of course not, when you say ‘you´re on my wavelength” is an expression

-         And it means, you undestand  me, you ensure communication with me.

-         You really know what I´m thinking.

-         You are on my wavelength , baby!

-         The point is, just when he has to say,` look Suzanne, I don´t really love you`

-         Which is very embarassing

-         She knows this and she stops you talking

-         How?

-         Easy, she lets the river answer.

-         How?

-         She simply says, ‘don´t talk, just listen to the river’

-         And when he listens to the river, he knows it doesn´t matter, because…

-         Because he´s always been her lover

(A piece of the song is read)

And just when you want to tell her

That you have no love to give her

Then she gets you on her wavelength

And she lets the river answer

That you´ve always been her lover

-         Romantic, isn´t it?

-         Lovely

-         No wonder he wants to be with her, even if she´s half crazy, she´s very understanding.

-         You know the saying ‘love is blind’

-         Yes, lovers can see no fault on each other

-         That´s why they choose each other

-         I suppose they can see nothing wrong with each other

-         Let´s hear what he says about that

And you want to travel with her

And you want to travel blind

And you know that she will trust you

For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

-         And you want to travel with her

-         Travel, like a trip, make a journey.

-         Perhaps to France, to America

-         By boat, by plane

-         Or ship or train

-         And you want to travel with her

-         And you want to travel blind

-         If I close my eyesI can’t see anything

-         And a blind person is someone who can´t see anything

-         So it´s sometimes said ‘love is blind’

-   &06ssanne_eng.mp3sp;   nt size="2">A lover sees no fault on the person he loves

-         And of course Suzanne is this man’s lover

-         He wants to travel without looking for bad things or for faults

-         He wants to close his eyes to all the unpleasant things that might happen

-         And only see the good things, the nice things

-         He just wants to enjoy travelling with Suzanne

And you want to travel with her

And you want to travel blind

And you know that she will trust you

For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

-         He knows that Suzanne will trust him

-         If we trust someone, we  delegate him

-         We have confidence in him

-         And we touch her perfect body with his mind

-         When we touch someone

-         We come into contact with him, physically

-         Usually with our fingers or with our hands

-         Keith, Give me your hand!

-         Here you are

-         We´re touching

-         We´re touching each other´s hands

-         But here he says he´s touched her perfect body with his mind, he´s touched her mentally, not just physically.

-         But this is a poetic way of saying once again

-         That she is on jis wavelength

-         That they´re on communication

-         That they understand each other

-         Listen:

And you want to travel with her

And you want to travel blind

And you know that she will trust you

For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

-         Keith, what else is unusual about Suzanne?

-         Well, she wears strange clothes and she does strange things .And she has a special way of looking at the world

-         How does she look at the world?

-         Well, like a child, in a nice way, she looks all the good things, she shows you the best parts of life,oh look, just listen:

Now Suzanne takes your hand

And she leads you to the river

She is wearing rags and feathers

From Salvation Army counters

And the sun pours down like honey

On our lady of the harbour

And she knows you where to look

Among the garbage and the flowers

There are heroes in the seaweed

There are children in the morning

They are leaning out for love

And they will lean that way for ever

While Suzanne holds the mirror

-         Suzanne leads you to the river

-         By your hand, she thake your hand and shows you the way, and her clothes are very unusual: rags and feathers

-         Rag is a piece of cloth when they´re torn and ripped. Listen : I’m ripping a piece of paper nad tear it now, And she wears all torn clothes , and feathers as well.

-         Women in England used to wear a special kind of scarf around their necks made of feather, and this is called a ‘feather boa’ which you can only buy them on shops than sell old clothes

-         Or on the Salvation Army counters

-         Yes, the Salvation Armay is a charity organization. They help the poor, they get money by selling old clothes and other things. And the counter is the place in the shop where they put the clothes so you can see them.

-         And Suzanne buys all her clothe second-hand as he says

-         No new but from the Salvation Army counters

-         And she goes to the harbour

-         The port, the place where ships are

-         And it´s very warm

-         Yeah, the sun pours down like honey

-         Honey comes from bees and it´s warm, and fluid and soft

-         And in the same way that I can pour water like this ( we can hear water pouring, the sound) listen, you see, I was just pouring water into a glass

-         The sun pours down on a harbour warm, fluid, soft.

And she leads you to the river

She is wearing rags and feathers

From Salvation Army counters

And the sun pours down like honey

On our lady of the harbour

And she knows you where to look

Among the garbage and the flowers

There are heroes in the seaweed

There are children in the morning

They are leaning out for love

And they will lean that way for ever

                                          While Suzanne holds the mirror

-         She shows the place to look

-         She shows you where to look, among the garbage, among the flowers

-         Garbage, litter, rubbish, UH! It sounds horrible, smelly

-         Look, what he means is, she always finds something good even in horrible things

-         I see, after that, she sees all the good things in life, even in untidy situations.

-         Exactly

-         There are heroes in the seaweed,a hero is a brave person, someone without fear

-         A seaweed is wet, horrible and slippery. It´s a flower that goes under the water

-         And this is a poetic way of saying that even in unpleasant things you can always find something nice

-         Like children playing in the morning, leaning out for love

-         When do we lean out?

-         When we can’t really reach something, we can’t quite get it

-         And the children are reaching out for love

-         They’re putting their hands out, wanting to be loved always, for ever

-         So all these lovely things happen everyday, but not everyone sees them

-         No, perhaps they´re too busy

-         In the same way I can see myself in the mirror, my reflection when I´m saving in the morning

-         The man sees all these lovely things in the world because  of Suzanne, she holds the mirror to the world, she is his mirror

-         Exactly.

And she knows you where to look

Among the garbage and the flowers

There are heroes in the seaweed

There are children in the morning

They are leaning out for love

And they will lean that way for ever

                                          While Suzanne holds the mirror

-         And that song is called ‘Suzanne’

-         And it´s sung by Leonard Cohen

-         The song ‘Suzanne’ sung by Leonard Cohen

-         And that’s all in Pedagogical Pop for the moment

-         So Good Bye from Kathy

-         And from Keith

-         Goodbye!

                                                                                               Victoria Cifuentes Silvá