Frankly Mr Shankly

Gonçalo Frota, jornalista especializado na área da música, deitou abaixo o novo álbum de Leonard Cohen. Segundo Gonçalo Frota, Old Ideas (assim se chama ironicamente o álbum) é o disco de um «homem cansado», reforçando esta «nova ideia» com um exemplo: a música Going Home é uma alusão à reforma. Eis a letra:

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit


But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He will never have the freedom
To refuse


He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube


Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it’s better
Than before


Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore


He wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeat


A cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn’t what I want him to complete


I want to make him certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision


That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
That is to SAY what I have told him
To repeat


Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than before


Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore


I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

Repito: Gonçalo Frota é «especialista» em música (no Público). O facto de ele não ver um palmo à frente do nariz, é apenas um pormenor. Até porque, bem vistas as coisas, está inferida na música I’ve Got You Under My Skin, uma alusão à dermatologia.