Speaking as One Voice to Another …
Posted By Randy on March 13, 2014
In my 17 years overseeing operations at Central Dispatch – the emergency communications centre that I established and operated from 1984 to 2001 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia – I had regular cause to call in to the RCMP communications centre in Halifax (call sign 416), and speak to the (mostly female) dispatchers there. I have been, and continue to be, accused of having a “radio voice”, and I came to learn that the ladies at 416 had bestowed upon me the title of “The Voice” – I called in one day, and immediately upon hearing me speak, the one answering only thought she had muted her headset when immediately upon hearing my voice she whispered to her colleagues, “It’s The Voice!” Well now, what a giveaway.
I speak of this because I was reminded today of a Leonard Cohen poem I first heard on a day now lost in the mists of time, and that makes reference to a man with a most wondrous voice indeed. “The Voice” or no, speaking for myself, I lay no claim to such power, and in tests I conducted many years ago after I first heard “The Hypnotist”, only recorded success rates no better than 60/40 on a good day.Still, not bad, but I seem to have improved with age. I’m now at 100%. It works on Mrs. LFM every time, and who could ask for more?
So here, read to you by another Great Voice, is the Esteemed and Treasured Mr. Cohen himself, who even at the age of 80 is not permitted to speak to my Wife without supervision.
)
Years ago Mike, we were in Germany at the time, called his grandmother in Canada. His aunt, who was visiting and Mike hadn’t spoken to for quite some time, picked up the phone and asked who it was, and Mike answered: “well, who do you think who this is?”, to which she replied something like: “Honey, going by your voice I really don’t care who you are but I surely like to meet you.”
Mike would agree regarding Cohen – he’d be watching eagle-eyed too if he and I were ever meet. His hands (Cohen’s) – wow, that man has such sexy hands.
The voice is a powerful thing, to be sure, whether it be to sooth, seduce, trouble, or annoy, Hit on by your aunt though, albeit sight unseen – that’s classic!
You know, after I read your expression of admiration for the hands of Leonard Cohen, I went to Google and discovered an interesting thing – every possible search involving the name of Leonard Cohen and hands seems to have already been done. At first I chalked it up to people searching for some poem or song he wrote that prominently featured the word “hands” (Oh take this longing from my tongue, whatever useless things these hands have done ….”), but then I discovered that there is even a blog that featured some photographs of Cohen’s hands that were taken while he was talking to someone in a lobby somewhere. Yes – there is an entire genre of Leonard Cohen hand porn. Who knew?