Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat redo (Joan Baez)

Joan Baez was a cool hippie chick, an early and enduring American folk singer (Family This)

Zen monk Leonard Cohen, Los Angeles

FADED BLUE DENIM

By Seven

FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT

By Leonard Cohen

It's foreign, the mourning, the dead of December

It's four in the morning, the end of December

I'm singing to say or to see if you're better

I'm writing you now just to see if you're better

L.A. is warm, yet I dislike where I'm dying

New York is cold, but I like where I'm living

There's sound on Sulfur Street, I think it's seething

There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening

It seems that you're building

I hear that you're building

Your home away in the woods

Your little house deep in the desert

You're living for new things now

You're living for nothing now

I hope you're assembling some kind of book

I hope you're keeping some kind of record

Ha, Jains came by with a Doctrine to compare

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair

They said their Hero left it right here

She said that you gave it to her

The night He made it up there

That night that you planned to go clear

Do you think it compares?

Did you ever go clear?

Woe, the last light I saw through, you seemed such a wonder

Oh, the last time we saw you you looked so much older

Your plain paisley print shirt was billowy and an aura

Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder

Seemed a creation of some sinewy tie-dye stain

You'd been to the station to meet every train

But you must've been home with newly serrated teeth

But then you came home without Lili Marlene

And you treated me to your back

And you treated my woman

A dander of your former life

To a flake of your life

And when I could relax

And when she came back

I saw things not as I might

She was nobody's wife

'ell, a dream and you're there, a thin paisley leaf

Well, I see you there with the rose in your teeth

One more thin hippie treat

One more thin gypsy thief

'ell it seems Jains awake

Well, I see Jane's awake

They offer regards

She sends her regard

How to attain zen? Just sit and sit and...

What can I offer my brothers, such splitters*?

And what can I tell you my brother, my killer?

What can I possibly say?

What can I possibly say?

They'll say I missed the mark. I'll say I was see through

I guess that I miss you. I guess I forgive you

I'm sad you would not point The Way

I'm glad you stood in my way

Though you came by here

If you ever come by here

For Jains more than me

For Jane or for me

Well, your ex is sinking

Well, your enemy is sleeping

While his is set free

And his woman is free

Woe, no thanks for the trouble

Yes, and thanks for the trouble

Now you've left me behind

You took from her eyes

I may be here for good

I thought it was there for good

So I better try

So I never tried

Ha, Jains came by with a Doctrine to compare

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair

They said their Hero left it right here

She said that you gave it to her

The night He made it up there

That night that you planned to go clear

Sincerely, El Moanin'

Sincerely, L. Cohen

• Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song

*Early British scholars in India came to regard Jains as a breakaway school of Buddhism because there were too many similarities between Buddhism and Jainism for it to be chance. The idea is that one group -- ahimsa-living vegetarians, practicing severe austerities, sky clad, pursuing nonpossession of anything (physical detachment). But early Buddhists would think this a funny breakaway school because they say the right things and claim the right motives but do not live up to their lofty ideals. Instead, if they had wanted to follow the Great Hero (Mahavira, one of many epithets for the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama), they would not follow Vardhamma the Jain (the Nigantha Nataputta in Buddhist literature) but instead practice the Middle Way and avoid extremes and thereby arrive at real moksha (spiritual liberation), which the historical Buddha said was nirvana (nirodha, cessation, the end of all ignorance, rebirth, and suffering). In place of this, Jains cling to the idea of an eternal soul or self just like most other religions and regard rebirth in one final heavenly world as the ideal, the end of all further rebirth. But all worlds in samsara, the cycle, are impermanent, nonself (impersonal), and utterly incapable of fulfilling or satisfying or being completely free of suffering/disappointment. Only nirvana, the unconditioned element, can do that. So in this sense and for this reason, Jains can be seen as "splitters," disgruntled ex-Buddhist monastics who tried to make a better school of Buddhism that eventually cut all ties and came up with a founder and leader that looks almost exactly like the Buddha, except that he's naked (sky clad) and has a slightly different back story and somewhat different Dharma/Doctrine to teach, a different means of reaching liberation. "Nigantha" means "the owners of nothing," and Nataputta is Mahavira the Jain's personal name ("Son of Nata").