Joan of Arc
Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour bright,
no man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
a wedding dress or something white
to wear upon my swollen appetite."
"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
you know I've watched you riding every day
and something in me yearns to win
such a cold and lonesome heroine."
"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
to the one beneath the smoke.
"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."
"Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
saying this she climbed inside
to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and high above the wedding guests
he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?
Commentary
I’ve always enjoyed poetry (and prose) that takes an established sequence of events and offers a different way of interpreting them…
Leonard Cohen’s subject material has always been the beauty and pain of human emotion, and he brings a sensitive and experienced eye to his study. His songs are often anguished and lonely, yet they’re rarely depressing or bitter; instead, they’re permeated by an intense, almost touching faith in the power of love, an optimism that redeems his superficial bitterness and brittlety.
Today’s allegorical song/poem is very interesting1. The theme is handled more directly than in several other of Cohen’s offerings; at the same time, the poem is less personal, and (perhaps for that very reason) less gut-wrenching. At first reading it seems irrevocably, inexorably pessimistic: Joan’s death by fire betokens no hint of the healing effect of love, only its agony. And yet… there seems to be an element of paradox here, for after all, the historical figure of Joan of Arc2 is almost the canonical example of the power of faith in the face of overwhelming odds. This insight leads us to another, more positive interpretation of the poem: despite the cruelty and brightness of the fire’s embrace, Joan chooses to accept it, to accept the pain and the suffering, in the hope of redemption and salvation. This is Cohen’s testament; it may be harsh, but it rings true.
— Thomas
Moreover
This the fourth in a series of poems which are actually the lyrics to popular (or, as the case may be, obscure) songs. I forgot to mention that the previous member of the series, “Conquistador”, by Keith Reid, was a guest poem submitted by Amit Chakrabarti. Sorry, Amit.
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
SD Williams · 5 April 2001
Rick and I sat up playing the music last week, not having done so in more than 30 years, with Glenmorangie beside and the children all safe upstairs, and we tried to remember songs and remembered Leonard Cohen, I seeing him play once in the ’60s or ’70s, him too shy to take his gaze from the stage floor, so that Buffy St. Marie had to coax him, but he would not look at the audience as he sang Suzanne, and even all the other sensitive singer poets of the age thought his vulnerability was deeper than their’s, and however else you interpret his songs, in the end they are all different paths to delicious doomed love, the need to find salvation in someone’s embrace, sex, eyes, voice, and then to part in so satisfying melancholy, blue streets, lone cigarettes, because, ya know, it could never work, it never works, there’s just a night or a week or a month when you know one of you is fire and the other’s wood, and then you’re just the ashes of the wedding dress. Joan of Arc, she was just one more ice queen.
Manchester
Jones Susan M · 3 February 2004
I am a huge fan of Cohen - always have been, always will be. It was to “Suzanne” that I felt my first stirrings of sexuality. Anyway, this song is the “our song” for my husband and I, and we have talked about the lyrics often. My husband postulated that Joan was pregnant, with part of her wanting to go back to traditional life and get married: “a wedding dress or something white, to wear upon my swollen appetite”. I like the idea of a brave and honest unconventional woman, bottom line. I think it’s easy to call her cold; certainly almost all strong women have been labeled so at one point or another. How can someone willing to embrace fire ever be truly cold?
Frazier Laurence (Larry) (CIV) · 24 August 2006
I’m reacting to Cohen’s song, more than to the lyrics as poetry. The words are dazzling, brilliant, searing. I like some of his work, not all. I like his words sung by Judy Collins, and I don’t like him singing his own words at all. And I find I like him a lot better if I listen to a couple of songs, not a whole big bunch of them. After a few songs, I start to feel like he’s playing the same notes over again. That isn’t really the case, of course. But he’s so distinctive, he sounds like himself. He doesn’t sound like anyone else. Anyway, I have a question for anyone who finds there way to (or, back to) this set of comments: Do you have any idea why in the world he stuck “La, la, la” into the song? I’ve tried my very best to make it seem like a striking counterpoint to the intensity of what he’s talking about, and I can’t hear it as anything but lame and jarring and discordant. (Or is that something Judy Collins threw in?)
Larry Frazier
Hhthesmith · 21 December 2006
It’s just a really good poem. Especially accompanied to music. Then it’s a great poem.
Gary Neitzke · 19 March 2007
When I first heard this song I was in the middle of a war - the war in Vietnam. A buddy of mine had purchase the album, Songs of Love and Hate, and copied it to a cassette. We had a little battery powered Panasonic combo radio/tape player we carried with us to the field. Often, in the evenings we would walk up to the top of a hill that had been scorched naked by Agent Orange, smoke a few joints, watch our allies, the South Korea’s randomly launch artillery shells towards a distant mount, affectionately known as “Charlie’s Mountain” as we listened to Leonard. Joan of Arc became one of my favorite Cohen songs.
The song is not so much about Joan. It is about us. Or rather it is about the ‘fire’ in us that as an earlier comment in these notes put it, “there is something essential about being Joan of Arc that requires martyrdom”. I must submit that it should read, there is something essential in us…that requires the martyrdom of Joan of Arc.
What is that “essential” which requires purification by fire?
It is the story - both ancient and modern - of the human community-turned-lynch-mob. caught up in the -contagions of the spreading flame. It is the story of culture reaching for a pseudo-peace through the concept of sacrifice. Joan is painted as a devil, a witch, one who is responsible for the ills the beset the community. Joan is the scapegoat; but who is the real satan here! Leonard ends with the statement and question: “Myself I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?” The answer he is trying to point to is “NO”. As the line in another Cohen song, “The Story of Issac”: “…you must not do it anymore!”
G. Neitzke