Famous Blue Raincoat

The problem with that song is that I’ve forgotten the actual triangle. Whether it was my own – of course, I always felt that there was an invisible male seducing the woman I was with. Now whether this one was incarnate or merely imaginary I don’t remember. I’ve always had the sense that either I’ve been that figure in relation to another couple or there’d been a figure like that in relation to my marriage. I don’t quite remember but I did have this feeling that there was always a third party, sometimes me, sometimes another man, sometimes another woman. It was a song I’ve never been satisfied with. ~Leonard Cohen

“Famous Blue Raincoat” is a song about the fallout from a romantic triangle and the dynamics involved, but this song also has a twist. Cohen casts himself both as the interloper in a couple’s relationship and the male figure in the couple.

The lyrics take the form of a letter written in the first person by a man whose wife has had an affair. The letter is addressed to the man who had the affair with the wife. These men either are brothers or were very good friends and the affair is now open knowledge within the triangle.

The setting is established in the opening of the letter but the conflicting feelings of the writer are not far below the surface. It is wintertime in New York City, in fact, it is the end of December and the middle of the night – a suitable time, so it seems, for some ugly thoughts to surface and torment the mind of the writer. A tension is formed and you can sense the writer circling an important issue concerning the addressee while the usual small talk and courtesies are extended. Tentatively, the first approaches to the issue are presented. The writer has had a visit from Jane. She has shown him a lock of the addressee’s hair which, Jane has stated, he had given to her on a night of some significance when he was supposed to “go clear”. The writer asks if the man ever did “go clear” but the line is delivered, after a conspicuous musical pause heightens the tension, as more of an accusation than a question of curiosity.

The issue of the affair is brought to the forefront in the next verse. It starts with talk of the last time the writer and Jane and the other man had been together at some indeterminant time in the past. The man, with his famous blue raincoat, was searching for a partner and the search was in earnest. He had been to the “station to meet every train” yet always returned in failure without finding his “Lili Marlene”, the idealized partner of his dreams. (The reference is to an enormously popular song at the end of WWII sung by returning soldiers hoping to find their “Lili Marlene”, their iconic woman, when they got home.) As it turns out the man has a brief, meaningless affair with the writer’s wife which leads directly to a breakdown of the relationship. Cohen’s lyrics here are stark, harsh and powerful: “And you treated my woman to a flake of your life/And when she came back she was nobody’s wife”. The condemnation continues with a depiction of the man as “gypsy thief”, a seducer of women “with the rose in your teeth” who simply chalks up the experience to another victory. As for Jane, Cohen delivers the line devoid of expression, another seeming accusation: “She sends her regards”.

How does one deal with this knowledge, the betrayal, the destruction of a relationship? The consequences have been devastating and final. What resolution can there be between these three? The writer addresses the man as his “brother” (either actually or as a term of close friendship) but also his “killer”, the destroyer of his dreams. How does the heart reconcile the emotional forces acting on the writer? What can he possibly say? Is he expected to say he misses his brother/killer? Forgives him? Thanks him for ending the marriage? Whatever the expectations may be, the following lines tell us the point the writer has reached: “If you ever come by here for Jane or for me/Your enemy is sleeping and his woman is free”. The writer remains the “enemy” of the man, but this condition is not active, it is dormant – the enemy is “sleeping”. And Jane, “his woman”, is free. In terms of reconciliation this is as far as the writer can go.

If there is anything positive to any degree coming out of this situation it is the acknowledgement of the writer that Jane, as a result of the affair, has had the “trouble” taken from her eyes – something the writer was unable to do and, in fact, never put in any real effort believing the trouble to be “there for good”. It is the graciousness of the writer that requires him to extend his thanks to the man.

The closing lines bring the listener back to the event that triggered the writing of the letter: Jane and the lock of hair. We come back to this image with a fuller understanding of the consequences. Jane has the lock of hair as a memento of the affair and has lost her marriage. The other man now has been informed of the fallout of his actions and the writer, well, the writer has become a sleeping enemy who no longer has his woman.

…………………..

By signing off the letter as “L. Cohen” there is no mistaking who is the writer of the letter. It is not necessary, of course to know who the characters are to measure the power of the lyrics, but there is an interesting twist here that Cohen fans may recognize. He has dropped enough clues to also identify himself as the man to whom the letter is written. The reference to “going clear” indicates a stage that initiates to Scientology can achieve and Cohen’s interest in this philosophy in the late 1960’s is well documented. The “famous blue raincoat” image which gives the song its name was a Burberry coat purchased by Cohen in London when he first left Canada in route to Greece and his eventual settling on the island of Hydra. By his own admission he has played both roles presented in the lyrics: the man giving offence and the man to whom the offence was given. It is not employment of a simple writing technique designed to enhance the power of the lyrics that Cohen uses his own name. In the tradition of writing from one’s own experience, it lends an authenticity to the song.