---
# System prepended metadata

title: '[Master Song](https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/doc/song.master_song)'

---

Previously: [Joan of Arc](https://hackmd.io/@sudonhim/BJo0YiiBw)

*Master Song* has some of Cohen's most cryptic lyrics. There are parts of it I'm pretty sure of, parts that I'm tentative on, and parts that still confound me. What I have may be useful to others, and perhaps there are others who can fill in some of the gaps, so I'm sharing it here.

I claim this (partial) interpretation as "correct" in the sense that there are some core themes that I am quite confident about, and any interpretation that misses these is so far off the mark as to be misleading. Thank you to professor Timothy P Jackson for helping to refine some of these themes.

I'll try to be brief, but the early verses especially need a lot of explanation.

# [Master Song](https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/doc/song.master_song)

*I'd like to sing a song which is called the "Master Song" and it's about the trinity... Leave that for the scholars. It's about three people.*\- [BBC Sessions, 1968](https://www.leonardcohennotes.com/doc/live.1968_07_09_bbc_sessions_once_more_with_felix)

The song has three characters that form a love triangle: the narrator, the lady he is singing to, and her master, with whom the narrator competes for the love of the lady. As Cohen hints in the quote above, this love triangle has a unity with the Catholic trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Cohen, singing to his Christian (or post-Christian) audience, speaks with this symbolism.

The three parts of Cohen's trinity are as follows:

1. The Father / The Narrator. Cohen sings in his role as a prophet of Judaism, speaking God's words to his Christian audience.
2. The Son (Christ) / The Master. Historically, Christ is our lord and master. These last centuries the relationship has become more complicated, but he retains his place in the trinity. The broken, disintegrating relationship between our society and Christ is a theme in many of Cohen's songs, including *Master Song*.
3. The Holy Spirit / The Lady. She is the guiding spirit of Christian society. She thus also represents Cohen's audience; when he sings to move her, he sings to move us.[1]

As with [Joan of Arc](https://www.reddit.com/r/leonardcohen/comments/myjop1/the_correct_interpretation_of_joan_of_arc/), this song is best understood as a sort of spiritual history, detailing the relationship between the three characters over the last two millenia. Also note that the symbolism of the female character is equivalent; this symbolism is repeated across the majority of Cohen's songs.

With this background, we are ready for the first verse:

>*I believe that you heard your master sing
>When I was sick in bed
>I suppose that he told you everything
>That I keep locked away in my head
>Your master took you travelling
>Well, at least that's what you said
>And now, do you come back to bring
>Your prisoner wine and bread?*

The song opens with the chronological beginning of the story, when Israel was occupied and oppressed by Rome and thus Cohen, as the Jewish god/prophet, was "sick in bed". It was under these conditions that Christ was able to "sing" and seduce his lover away[2]. Cohen speaks to the Christian experience of Christ revealing ultimate truths and taking the believer on a journey, but with a note of skepticism; "I suppose", "at least that's what you said"[3]. This skepticism is directed at the lady, not at Christ. The possibility left open here is that Christianity has strayed from Judaism in ways that Christ himself did not.

Second verse:

>*You met him at some temple
>Where they take your clothes at the door
>He was just a numberless man in a chair
>Who'd just come back from the war
>And you wrap up his tired face in your hair
>And he hands you the apple core
>Then he touches your lips, now so suddenly bare
>Of all the kisses we put on some time before*

**Warning: I don't understand this verse well, and so will not attempt to summarize it. What follows are my tentative notes:** Relevant Cohen symbolisms: temple, clothes, door, hair, numbered, lips, kisses. Clothes are like traditions, kisses are like affirmations, the apple; the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. Thus in the meeting place Christ has eaten of the forbidden knowledge, as Eve had done in Eden. The removed clothes and the forgotten kisses represent the breaks with Judaism in Christianity's beginnings.

Third verse:

>*And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk
>With a collar of leather and nails
>And he never once made you explain or talk
>About all of the little details
>Such as who had a word and who had a rock
>And who had you through the mails
>Now your love is a secret all over the block
>And it never stops, not even when your master fails*

The "German Shepherd" is Martin Luther, German priest and seminal figure of the protestant reformation. Through its reliance on scripture alone, Protestantism left behind some of the "little details" of Christianity's roots. Cohen points to the Jewish origins of scripture (the word), the apostolic succession from St Peter (the rock), and the influence of the Pauline epistles (the mails), as examples. Cohen is calling these "little details" sarcastically, as he thinks they are greatly important[4].

Finally, Cohen jumps forward to the present secularized age. For Cohen the secular Christian society is still ultimately Christian, her love of Christ has become "a secret".

Fourth verse:

>*And he took you up in his aeroplane
>Which he flew without any hands
>And you cruised above the ribbons of rain
>That drove the crowd from the stands
>Then he killed the lights in a lonely lane
>And an ape with angel glands
>Erased the final wisps of pain
>With the music of rubber bands*

The figure of the prophet as a ship captain taking the lady on a journey recurs throughout Cohen's works. Here Jesus is instead depicted lifting her up in an aeroplane that he flies "without any hands". Compared to a ship, an areoplane is notable for its cruciform shape and its ascension to heaven.

I struggle to decide between two alternative readings of this verse.

The first alternative is that this is the scene is the centuries following the crucifixion; in this reading the "ribbons of rain" that "drove the crowds from the stands" are the collapse of the Roman empire. Rain is consistently used throughout Cohen's works to refer to the ending of an era, as with the biblical flood; and the crowded stands (such as those of the Colosseum) are an archetypical feature of Roman civilization. Thus in this interpretation Jesus pilots Christianity over the collapse of Roman civilization.

A second way this verse can be read is as applying to recent history, which better fits the chronological pattern of the song. In this reading the civilization that is ending is our own, the loss of his hands refers to secularization[5], and something strange has occurred in the "lonely lane". At this point I'm inclined to think that this reading is more likely to be correct. The last four lines though, probably need their own post to explain[6].

Fifth verse:

>*And now, I hear your master sing
>You kneel for him to come
>His body is a golden string
>That your body is hanging from
>His body is a golden string
>My body has grown numb
>Oh, now you hear your master sing
>Your shirt is all undone*

The image used here is from the story of The Sword of Damocles. In the story, a sword hangs above a king, suspended by a single golden thread, and it will kill him if the thread breaks.

In Cohen's use of this image Christian society is the sword, and it hangs above the Jewish god/prophet, with the body of Christ as the golden thread. In a sense, society is poised to kill god, and only its genuine connection to Christ is holding it back. Communism and Fascism can be understood in this fashion, as can Christian [supercessionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism).

Sixth verse:

>*And will you kneel beside this bed
>That we polished so long ago
>Before your master chose instead
>To make my bed of snow?
>Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red
>And you're speaking far too low
>No, I can't make out what your master said
>Before he made you go*

Cohen asks if we will listen to him, in his role as the Jewish god/prophet. After all, our society descends from a marriage with him "long ago", before Judaism was cast out.

Seventh verse:

>*Then I think you're playing far too rough
>For a lady who's been to the moon
>I've lain by this window long enough
>To get used to an empty room
>And your love is some dust in an old man's cup
>Who is tapping his foot to a tune
>And your thighs are a ruin, you want too much
>Let's say you came back some time too soon*

The moon is used consistently to mean the draw of heaven or utopia. Cohen says that the lady has been to it, referring to both the apollo missions and the near-utopian achievements of western civilization.

Eighth verse:

>*I loved your master perfectly
>I taught him all that he knew
>He was starving in some deep mystery
>Like a man who is sure what is true
>And I sent you to him with my guarantee
>I could teach him something new
>And I taught him how you would long for me
>No matter what he said, no matter what you'd do*

Cohen wraps up the song by reminding us that it was the Jewish god/prophet who loved Jesus and taught him all he knew. In sum, Master Song critiques Christianity's departures from Judaism and entreats us to return to the roots of both Christianity, and the Judaism it grew from.

\[1\] - This is perhaps the most central and important of all Cohen's symbolisms, and a necessary pre-requisite for understanding his works.

\[2\] - Cohen often uses the female figure in bridal symbolisms; in Catholicism the church is considered to be "The Bride of Christ"; in the old testament (e.g. Hosea) the society is considered the bride to God. Cohen can then complain here that society was once married to the Judaic god, whereas she was then remarried to Christ.

\[3\] - Here we see the first hint of a key theme of the song - the Christian view of Christ as fullfilling, finishing, and even superceding the old testament. This is what is gestured to by the Jewish prophet sarcastically inquiring if Christ told us "everything" that Judaism had within it.

\[4\] - It's not clear what view Cohen wants us to take of the Pauline epistles. In *The Future* Cohen memorably places St Paul alongside Stalin.

\[5\] - Canonically those who do Christ's work in the world are symbolized as Christ's "hands".

\[6\] - If you'd like to try to work it out - the lane is most likely the same one mentioned in *Love Calls You By Your Name*