Mark Nuckols is certainly an upstanding and model citizen, isn't he?

Well, enough about that.

What the heck does "degospelled" mean?

I've always been very partial to:

Famous Blue Raincoat and Bird on a Wire.

I don't quite get the comparison between Dylan and Cohen. Is it necessary to compare him to acknowledge his talent and sensitivity? As fine as Cohen is, he's had much less influence with the masses because Dylan speaks to them with less pretense.

If you want a comparison, rather than a contrast, I'd say both Dylan and Cohen write lyrics that reflect and validate what one actually feels about a given situation, instead of what one SUPPOSED to feel.

Perhaps it's because of the suit and tie thing.

But, seriously, their paths do cross. Oh Mercy is laced with Cohen theme and nuance. Everything Is Broken could quite convincingly be attributed to Cohen as composer.

Hallelujah has been ruined through overexposure in film scores (Watchmen being the latest and most egregious example).

Dylan's approach to lyrics can be scattershot, but some of his (mostly early) work has the focused, knife-twisting quality of Cohen, like this one which has resonance in these piratical times.

Svensker: "de-Gospel'ed" I think.

degospelled, or keep your Nuckols of my meaning...

I think degospelled is far too interesting-sounding a word to just mean "de-gospel'ed", even if that's B. Chazelle's intended meaning. Because that just begins and ends the etymological mystery right there, doesn't it?

I propose it should be allowed to float up into the ether and seize its own meaning, like "Mark Nuchols was utterly degospelled when he realized that..."

Cohen is a poet, who merely likes to decorate his meticulously crafted words with music.

People often say this about him, and I understand why, but I can't agree. Just today I was listening to New Skin for the Old Ceremony and noticing the brilliant arrangements on songs like "There Is a War" and "Is This What You Wanted". The placement of the hand percussion, the at times halting, at times forceful backing vocalists, other elements that I can't think of right now because I'm tired and have a headache...these are not just decorations, but integral to the impact of the words. A poet who decorates his words with music does not progress from acoustic folk to synthesized washes of sound, nor does he go to Phil Spector to produce an album.

I agree that Leonard Cohen's lyrics can very easily stand on their own as poetry, but I can't think of the music as an afterthought.

And then there are those of his poems that he did not make into songs, some of which are rhythmically structured very differently than his song lyrics. I'm thinking in particular of "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot", which I'd bet Cohen never even thought of as being a potential song until Buffy Sainte-Marie came along and figured out how to make it musical (and how to make it sound like she wrote it for herself).

As for Mozart, I've always felt kind of guilty for liking the Lacrimosa best out of the entire Requiem, like I was favoring the ghostwriter over Mozart himself. Thanks for somewhat validating me!