Showing posts with label heather drysdale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heather drysdale. Show all posts

Monday, February 23, 2009

famous blue amphibrachs

Note problems with blogging last night meant this post ended abruptly without the famous blue amphibrachs - this has been rectified... scroll on down....



While I was in Canada, Leonard Cohen was here in Wellington. My friend Heather texted me while he was playing to say it was the gig of the year if not the decade. When he was singing Famous Blue Raincoat, she had tears in her eyes. I had tears in my eyes knowing I was missing it. The clip above is from the Bucharest concert last year because it's a pretty clean close-up version.

Did you know that much of FBR is written in amphibrachs? These are metrical feet used in Latin and Greek prosody. An amphibrach consists of a long syllable between two short ones e.g.

It's four in/ the morning,/ the end of/ December
I'm writing/ you now just/ to see if/ you're better
New York/ is cold, but/I like where/ I'm living
There's music/ on Clinton/ Street all through/ the evening