First We Take Manhattan

I felt for some time that the motivating energy, or the captivating energy, or the engrossing energy available to us today is the energy coming from the extremes. That‘s why we have Malcolm X. And somehow it‘s only these extremist positions that can compel our attention. And I find in my own mind that I have to resist these extremist positions when I find myself drifting into a mystical fascism in regards to myself. [Laughs] So this song, “First We Take Manhattan,” what is it? Is he serious? And who is we? And what is this constituency that he‘s addressing? Well, it‘s that constituency that shares this sense of titillation with extremist positions. ~Leonard Cohen

The voice in the lyrics belongs to what seems to be a home-grown extremist ready to launch his revolution. The opening lines present the first of a list of grudges which, if you are curious about the speaker’s motivation, may give some insight. A subject of some debate in the late 60’s was whether society could be changed more effectively by revolution or by altering the system from inside. The speaker tried ‘changing the system from within’ but was in fact sentenced to ‘20 years of boredom’ for the effort – clever lines from Cohen that sum up the situation so succinctly with a heavy dose of irony. Having failed to reform from within, it is now time to instigate revolution.

Although we get the sense that the speaker is passionate and committed to the cause, the second verse should raise some alarms when we learn that the leader’s guidance comes from “a signal in the heavens”, “the birthmark on my skin” and “the beauty of our weapons” – this is not the type of leader in which most would willing to place their trust – the motivations are a little too quirky. He receives divine guidance – “a signal in the heavens”.  The “birthmark on my skin” indicates that he has been singled out, ‘chosen’ so to speak, for this mission – by the same divine source as the ‘guidance’ no doubt. and an affinity for weapons – “guided by the beauty of our weapons” seems to carry a degree of menace that should make anyone wary. Nonetheless the rallying cry “First we take Manhattan then we take Berlin” is designed to be inspirational. Remember, the political and cultural context of 1988 was the Cold War and the rivalry of the US and the USSR with a divided Berlin signifying an important battleground. It would be another year before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In verse three the speaker is quite confident in the success of the movement. In the earlier days it was regarded with a certain amount of amusement and tolerance, but now, when the threat of a successful revolution is immanent, it is too late to stop it. The powers that be may have the resources and ability to put an end to the movement, but don’t have the stomach for the drastic measures necessary to end the threat….and the speaker delights in this oh so favourable set of circumstances.

Verse four continues the list of the speaker’s personal grudges. The ‘fashion business’, ‘the drugs that keep you thin’ and something, we don’t know what, that happened to his sister are on the list. It is these things from which the speaker has taken the hurt, the anger, and the hatred, built it up and channeled it into an uncompromising desire to address the wrongs. It is the willingness to release that blinding urge, unfettered by any moral considerations, that would be followers would find so appealing. We may not share the same grudges as this leader, but we all carry some degree of hurt and anger over any number of issues that can be substituted into this verse with the same outcome: it is time to settle the score.  As Cohen himself acknowledged in the opening quotation above, this kind of dynamic has an appeal all its own.

(This idea of an appeal to the heart causing a critical mass of people to join in was used again in a verse from Cohen’s song “Anthem” released a short four years after his recording of “First We Take Manhattan”:

          I can’t run no more
          With that lawless crowd
          While the killers in high places
          Say their prayers out loud
          But they’ve summoned,
          They’ve summoned up
          A thundercloud
          And they’re going to hear from me)

The final verses raise again some quirky points of the speaker’s motivation, but another, perhaps more chilling, element is mentioned: “Ah, remember me, I used to live for music/Remember me, I brought your groceries in”. It is a type of kinship with the public at large that the speaker attempts to draw upon to his advantage, a common set of conditions from which he arose that others also face and therefore can arrive at the same position of active revolution. Perhaps more clearly, the same element forms the basis of the chorus. In the chorus the speaker recognizes and admires qualities of fellow citizens: “I’d really like to live beside you, baby/I love your body and your spirit and your clothes”, but right after this comes the admission that the speaker was also, like all of them, a part of the system: “But you see that line there moving through the station?/I told you, I told you, I told you I was one of those.” In other words: ‘I used to be where you are, but look where I am in now’. It is an invitation to move forward and join in the revolution.

Cohen notes that his recording of the song, in contrast to Jennifer Warnes’ previously released version, has a distinctly menacing tone in spite of the upbeat music accompanying it:

I had many ideas for this song but when I heard Jeff Fisher’s arrangement it had just that quality of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns that I think was needed to give an ironic or humorous dimension to the song. Because it is a song that invites people to allow me to control the world and to gather behind me in this effort. It’s a mad declaration and if I had made it with a certain kind of “serious Leonard Cohen music” I do not think I could have tolerated it. I needed the synthesizer, I needed that ironic quasi disco, quasi Clint Eastwood feel, to be able to deliver the song at all. But I think it maintains a sense of menace because of the very poppy kind of rhythms that it has.

My preference goes to Cohen’s version as it seems to align more readily with the nature of extremist positions.