Closing may refer to:
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (born 21 September 1934) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour.
While giving the speech at Cohen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 10 March 2008, Lou Reed described Cohen as belonging to the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters."
Cohen was born on 21 September 1934 in Westmount, Montreal, Quebec, into a middle-class Jewish family. He attended Roslyn Elementary School. His mother, Marsha Klinitsky, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, emigrated from Lithuania while his great-grandfather emigrated from Poland. He grew up in Westmount on the Island of Montreal. His grandfather was Lyon Cohen, founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, Nathan Cohen, who owned a substantial Montreal clothing store, died when Cohen was nine years old. On the topic of being a Kohen, Cohen has said that, "I had a very Messianic childhood." He told Richard Goldstein in 1967. "I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest." Cohen attended Westmount High School, beginning in 1948 where he was involved with the Student Council and studied music and poetry. He became especially interested in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. As a teenager, he learned to play the guitar, and formed a country-folk group called the Buckskin Boys. Although he initially played a regular acoustic guitar as a teenager, he soon switched to playing a classical guitar after meeting a young Spanish flamenco guitar player who taught him "a few chords and some flamenco."
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.
Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places—although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And finally, everything worked out just fine.
Christmas was saved, though there wasn’t much time.
But after that night, things were never the same--
Each holiday now knew the other one’s name.
And though that one Christmas things got out of hand,
I’m still rather fond of that skeleton man.
So, many years later I thought I’d drop in,
And there was old Jack still looking quite thin,
With four or five skeleton children at hand
Playing strange little tunes in their xylophone band.
And I asked old Jack, “Do you remember the night
When the sky was so dark and the moon shone so bright?
When a million small children pretending to sleep
Nearly didn’t have Christmas at all, so to speak?
And would, if you could, turn that mighty clock back,
To that long, fateful night. Now, think carefully, Jack.
Would you do the whole thing all over again,
Knowing what you know now, knowing what you knew then?”
And he smiled, like the old pumpkin king that I knew,
Softer the wind came
As I was in the middle of this journey
Through the deepest parts of
The sadness that has taken my soul away
And he whispered a name When it suddenly came…
A violent cold that he could not control
But forced him to run…
An emanation of phantom madness
The bottomless pit
I’ll fall
The stories we could not controlled
And finally the end that we all know
La noche… se convirtió
En un gran hechizo
Uno de esos que quedan siempre
Y que todo el cuerpo se somete
Ante la muerte The symbols are clear
There’s nothing to fear
Just face all within
And I’ll disappear
Like clouds with the wind
Forever gone
Blown out by the winds
Of empty futures now
A veces siento que mi sangre
Fluyera a través de lugares
Donde el frío podría congelarla
Por la ciudad al igual que por un campo abierto
La herida se extiende transformando montañas en islas
De mares rojos
Muchas veces he pedido a los vientos capciosos
Que adormezcan el terror que me mina
En los olvidos un sueño e buscado
As all of this was going
Then skin started to turn blue
And the eyes seemed to shut
The life was going away
But a hand made it turn to him
And he knew it was not the time
To take parts away with them
So I rested and started
There's a secret in your hair
And it's wishing to be where
And so it seems
I'll have my dreams to give you
And now I think I'll close my eyes
To be the one you sleep with
And I'm not there
I'm in the air
You will wait for me
You'll be the one til winter's come
And we freeze in the snow
Blood runs warm and it runs cold
History is remarkable
And I'll say what I have said
River on the rise
Moving up its sides
Swallowing the bones
Of the animals
Wind begins to blow
Filled with red and gold
Loosening the leaves
From the autumn trees
On the edge of cliff
Lighthouse keeper lifts
Body to the breeze