It was 'Junior Cert' exam results week this week.
For those of you reading this that don't live in Ireland, Junior Cert is a state exam that you sit when you are about 14 or 15 years of age, you sit the exam in June and you have to wait until September for your results. How mean is that, you have to wait a whole summer, stressing over results (as if!!). For those of you living in the UK reading this, the exam is the equivalent to the GCSE's. For those of you reading in the US...I'm not sure what the US equivalent is, or if you even have an equivalent exam.
So, anyway, after a couple of missed opportunities, it was fitting that I got to see somebody this week who I first came across when I was supposed to be studying to sit my Junior Cert exam all those years ago...
...Just before Junior Cert year for me, we got a new Math teacher at our school. He was very cool and trendy and good looking, and being an all girls school, he was understandably a bit hit. Suddenly everybody was interested in Math! Our class/form were one of the 'lucky' classes that actually got him as our new Math teacher. We all turned over a new leaf in our much scribbled copy books and started to see algebra, trigonometry, theorems and all sorts of other Math stuff as items of interest. We forgot all about Donny Osmond and David Cassidy and whoever else's names we were drawing love hearts around and scribbling in our books about, and concentrated on our studies (and if you believe that.....!)
As it turned out, our Math teacher was not only a good teacher, he also played the guitar, and as we discovered years later, is an accomplished song writer. He was also very generous with his time and organised after school guitar lessons for anybody that was interested. So I decided to go along and see what this was all about. I think from memory there was only about 6 pupils who stayed back for the lessons. After a couple of lessons, teaching us how to read music and showing us a few chords and getting us strumming our shiny new guitars, he decided to teach us a song that we could all play and sing along with. A natural progression I think!
Here is where it all went horribly wrong. He asked did we know Leonard Cohen and the song Suzanne...eh...who....eh...what song? Everybody else in the class said yes so not to be outdone I said yes too (remember it was about 20 years ago and I was only about 14 years old....oh wait... that doesn't add up to my current age...I really should have paid more attention to my Math!!). So he gave us the chords, ran through the song a couple of times and told us to go home and learn it for next week. Jeez....I had never heard of the lovely Leonard or the seductive Suzanne...I was going to fail, fail miserably, and look a fool in front of the really cool teacher. Oh no...how could this be happening to me....
We had a record player at home, of course, but we didn't have any LC records. And, of course there was no Internet or Youtube for me to look up and find out what this was all about. So I had to learn the hard way by reading the music note by note and hoping I had the tune right. I spent a few hours (when I should have been studying my Junior Cert Math or French or some other subject) every night practicing and eventually got the hang of the tune and the chords and the words....gosh those words, they made no sense at the time...
Those were the days too when the television finished at 11.30, and I made my pocket money by babysitting.
One evening whilst babysitting for a couple that I thought were the most boring people under the sun, (having come to this conclusion because they had no Albums by David Bowie in their record collection) the television has long since finished broadcasting and there was still no sign of them coming home. The children were all fast asleep and I was bored. So I decided to browse their record collection yet again, and low and behold, I found a previously ignored Album entitled "Leonard Cohen - The Best of". The first track on the first side was Suzanne....after learning to play and sing it I finally heard the original....and that was it.... I was hooked! I think I wore out the needle and the record, and my voice from singing along!
So last night after many years of waiting, I finally got to see the great man himself. He came to my lovely city to entertain me with his songs and poetry and funny little quips. I know most people don't like or understand his music, but I do. And more surprising than him coming to entertain me, was how he entertained me. For an 'old' man of 78 years of age, dare I say....he rocked the joint!! By the end of the night the whole audience was dancing in the aisles.
My friend is a big Paul Weller fan, but she won't go and see him live because she thinks seeing him live might spoil the illusion and the fantasy and she might end up disappointed....well I have to tell her, that for me to see my idol live just made it all the better, and there was absolutely no disappointment.
I don't play the guitar much nowadays, but strangely enough when I do pick it up and play, I can always remember how to play Suzanne...
Funny how I can remember how to play the guitar, but I can't remember Math!! Best go and get a calculator and try to work out exactly how old I am....
