The Brief Elaboration of a Tube

Take a look at this video and you can see my hero Leonard Cohen singing one of his news songs off of Old Ideas.  Listen to (or read) the lyrics and see if you can figure out what the heck he's talking about.  A word of warning, he's a serious poet and his meaning is at times difficult to divine.  But I'll tell you.

In the song Going Home, he is singing about... I guess you might call it his creative process.  Where his ideas come from or where his inspiration comes.  There has been a lot of speculation so in my defense, I offer the following quote from the author:

Look...you know the songs are inspired.  I don't pretend to be a guide.  I do pretend to be an instrument for certain kinds of information  at certain moments.  Not all moments, and it has nothing to do with me as a guy.  I may be a perfect scoundrel...as a matter of fact, I am...just like the guy on the scene.  But there are moments when I am the instrument for certain kinds of information.

 So I've been thinking about this a lot lately, what he's saying.  He sees his talents, his gift so to speak as something outside of himself and he's...almost a spectator.  Maybe a caretaker and it's a duty for him to either neglect or attend to.  It's a very humble point of view.  Amazingly humble. 

Frankly my mind sort of boggles at this perspective.  I always thought of myself, at least in part,  in terms of what I like to do and my accomplishments.  But if your talents are just something that are given to you and you have no say in what they are or how much you get, all I am is either a dutiful or neglectful manager of them. 

In his song, Leonard Cohen points out that proper use of his gift is casting aside his own desire and being faithful only to it--to keep it pure.  To not interject any of himself into it.  I would think for a poet and a writer that the opposite would be true?