Wilstrup wrote:
> En eller anden koryfæ har sunget ovenstående - i hvert fald
> noget jeg husker som sådan. Jeg mener at det var "det syngende
> askebæger" Joe Cocker. Nu er det spørgsmålet hvordan det skal
> tolkes politisk:
>
> Mener manden Take Manhattan som jo er et område i New York
> eller laver han et ordspil på at "tage Manhattan" og derpå at
> "tage Berlin"? og hvis han virkelig mener at "tage Berlin", er
> det så et politisk budskab, der ligger i det, at man først
> skal overtage Manhattan og derpå Berlin eller hvad er
> meningen?
>
> Jeg rejser til Berlin i morgen en uges tid, og vil naturligvis
> gerne have et bud.
Leonard Cohen, - og om hvad sangen "betyder":
Toronto November 1988
Concert and backstage FM Interview
Oh comrades you're very kind and very warm but kind as you are and warm as
you are, it will not deter me from my appointed task. Which is to take
Manhattan and then Berlin and any other cities and do with them as I will.
Backstage Interview
I’m not sure of what it means right now because I had this long voyage from
Chicago. I think it means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song.
I think it's a response to terrorism. There's something about terrorism that
I've always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises.
That position is always very attractive. I don't like it when it's
manifested on the physical plane - I don't really enjoy the terrorist
activities – buy Psychic Terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by
Irving Layton that I once read, I'll give you a paraphrase of it. It was
'well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here
and there', he says. 'But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The
whole world is still quaking...