Music Tuesday: Joan of Arc by Jennifer Warnes & Leonard Cohen

As you’ve probably seen, I’ve had a series of posts on my reading of Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.  If you want to read my posts on the literary work, here is a link to the last one, and that contains links to the previous four.  

But Joan of Arc always inspires me to listen to this wonderful song written by Leonard Cohen.  The best performance of his song is when he sings it as a duet with Jennifer Warnes.  The song is roughly a dialogue between Joan and Christ at the point of her being burned at the stake.  Now I don’t think the song is exactly historically accurate and the theology doesn’t strike me as being sound.  Cohen is Jewish, albeit he seems to place a number of Catholic memes and themes in several of his songs.  Still the song is excellent and this video clip with the song’s lyrics and images from various works of art on Joan is superb. 

"Well then fire, make your body cold

I'm gonna give you mine to hold"

Saying this she climbed inside

To be his one, to be his only bride

It was deep into his fiery heart

He took the dust of a Joan of Arc

And high above all these assembled wedding guests

He hung the ashes of her very lovely wedding dress

It was deep deep into his fiery heart

That he took the dust of all precious Joan of Arc

Then she clearly clearly understood

If if he was fire, oh she must be wood

Read more: Leonard Cohen - Joan Of Arc Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I can never get enough of that song.