#21: Elizabeth and the Catapult, "Go Away My Lover"

Elizabeth Ziman has a healthy Leonard Cohen obsession. That’s rarely a bad thing. Cohen rivals Tom Waits for the title of Most Absolutely Incredible Lyricist You’ve Never Heard Of Because He Can’t Sing Worth a Damn. Over 2,000 versions of his songs have been done by other artists, most notably Jeff Buckley’s beautiful rendition of “Hallelujah” which just gave me an idea for a future post on Jeff Buckley’s beautiful rendition of “Hallelujah.” There are no Cohen covers on Elizabeth and the Catapult’s second album, The Other Side of Zero, but the entire collection, down to its title, is inspired by him.

How to fail with grace is something most of us could use some practice at. It was the inspiration of Cohen’s collection of poetry that inspired the album (that’s some Double Dog Inspiration right there) and clearly is a vein running through “Go Away My Lover.” From the balancing and mirroring of the two vocalists, to the blunt lyrics (the title does lack a certain subtlety), to the nonchalant whistling that suggests that even this utter failure of a relationship ain’t no big thing, the song reminds me of a mantra of personal preference – Don’t sweat the small shit. And it’s all small shit.

Decided it was better to stop coping other people’s bandwidth. So you can now listen at Hype Machine (http://hypem.com/#!/search/go%20away%20my%20lover/1/).  Just click on the play button. If you want to download, click on “Posted Last Week” to go visit yet another blog. One that pays for its server.

No video on this one either. Boy, I got lazy quickly.