For the past few weeks, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has quietly been singing the songs of Leonard Cohen.
Two weeks ago, he covered “So Long, Marianne” and “Bird on a Wire,” and this week he lent his voice to “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” and the lesser known “Fingerprints.” His daughter, Romany, accompanies him on harp and backing vocals as Gilmour lends his dreamy, subdued spin to the Cohen classics.
Gilmour’s songs are part of a series of broadcasts intended to promote his wife Polly Samson’s forthcoming book, A Theatre for Dreamers. The book takes place on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960, where Leonard Cohen lived at the time. Each of the songs that Gilmour performs in the broadcast were written during Cohen’s time on Hydra, a time that has since taken on a sort of mythical resonance. He lived there in almost complete seclusion, drinking in the beauty of the Aegean Sea and occasionally wandering into town for drunken revelries. It was there that he met his longtime muse, Marianne.
Polly Samson’s book casts a nostalgic glow on a bohemian sect of artists living on the island, including Cohen, Axel Jensen and Marianne Ilhen, who of course inspired “So Long, Marianne.” It centers around a fictional teenage novelist named Erica, who escapes London to pursue adventure on the island. The Guardian called it a “powerful meditation on art and sexuality” that “question[s] and problematise[s] the role of muse.”
Gilmour has been married to Samson since 1994. Samson is a co-writer of seven of the Pink Floyd album Division Bell’s 11 tracks, as well as some of Gilmour’s solo work, and she’s also a renowned novelist, lyricist and short story writer. Perhaps it’s not so hard to trace Samson’s interest in interrogating the life of a woman living in a renowned male artist’s shadow. Still, Samson and Gilmour seem to have found harmony in their collaborative efforts. It’s a little jarring to see Gilmour—whose mythology nearly rivals Cohen’s—in such a domestic setting, surrounded by babies, but then again, we’re happy he’s happy, and there’s something charming about the idyllic faux Greek setting behind them. A theatre for dreamers, indeed.
In the video, “Fingerprints” is at 15:45 and “Goodbye” is at 32:30.
A Theatre For Dreamers Live Streamwww.youtube.com
“Bird on a Wire” is at 7:46 in this video and “Marianne” is at 30:08.
Polly Samson’s A Theatre For Dreamers Live (With David Gilmour And Family) Part 2www.youtube.com
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