News at Eleven: A line from "Tower of Song"--"

I was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice"--more self-mocking than ever, elicits a huge cheer from the crowd. When he [Leonard Cohen] sings, in "Bird on the Wire," "I saw this beggar, he was leaning on his wooden crutch," he no longer hits the high note at the end of the line. The pitch descends, and the next line feels all the more intimate for it: "He says to me, 'Leonard, you just can't ask for all that much.' "

from The New Yorker: State of Grace

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