»Villanelle For Our Time« is a poem by the late F. R. Scott, one of Leonard's professors at McGill University. Leonard was asked to participate in a tribute to Scott, and he elected to compose a track around this poem. I usually don't hear the material before a session, and Leonard has never told me what to sing. He was in a most agreeable mood, having just left Mt. Baldy after a five year stay. And this was the most spontaneous, easy session I'd done for him. Leanne rolled the tape and I sang a few ideas and built it from there. My parts took just a couple hours to record. I don't take credit for the inspiration; it's more like it occurs and I claim the idea.

In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th Edition, 2000), we find that villanelle is »a 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.« Etymology is »French, from Italian villanella, from feminine of villanello, rustic, from villano, peasant, from Vulgar Latin *vllnus, from Latin villa, country house.«
Thus the canonical form is:

A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2

A1 and A2 stand for full lines that rhyme. They are (in the purest form) repeated without change. The lines I represent with »a« rhyme with both of them. The b-lines all rhyme as well (different rhyme).

The first »Villanellas« have been written in mediaeval Italy. But they didn't have the canonized form yet. The first »Villanelle« in the modern meaning of the word has been written by the French poet Jean Passerat about a »turtle dove«. This form was recognized as the canonized form even while Passerat was still alive.
To the poet the real challenge of the villanelle is to avoid boredom. The repeating lines should appear in a slightly different context (though ideally with exactly the same words). The whole poem should continually rise to the final rhyming couplet.
French, like Italian, is a language with literally millions of rhymes, whereas English is comparatively poor in that respect. The lesser the number of rhymes a language has, the harder it is, of course, to write a Villanelle worth reading. This might explain that the Form is quite rarely used in Angloamerican poetry: Oscar Wilde has written one, there are a few by Edward Arlington Robinson. I remember one by W. H. Auden. And there's an exquisite one by the late Sylvia Plath:

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I fancied you'd return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

If the poet succeeds the repetitions creates an atmosphere of high emotional intensity. Dear Heather's »Villanelle For Our Time«, to me, definitely succeeds. Frank R. Scott created one of the better villanelles. (And Leonard Cohen's rendition is far beyond having to be explicitely praised...)
The most famous English villanelle, and probably the greatest, actually to my mind one of the greatest poems of the 20th century, is by Dylan Thomas, who by the way died while staying in the Chelsea Hotel. It goes like this:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Welsh poet wrote this perfect villanelle on occasion of his father's death. Richard Burton rendered it on Dylan Thomas' own funeral. Hearing Dylan Thomas read »Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night« started me into poetry.
But why's Leonard Cohen repeating Scott's villanelle on his musical rendition once after the poem has been told; isn't that in contradiction with the form of villanelle itself? Taking into consideration the music, I'd say Cohen's multiple repetitions of the original poem, though not covered by the strict poetic form, heighten the intensity of Scott's villanelle. As I listen to the recording, I find that they don't simply add the same thing as given before, but rather underline the structure of the poem. Let's call it by »saying it again« for lack of a better word. (Actually, Leonard doesn't repeat exactly but varies, thereby giving the couplet even more weight than the form usually does.)
I think it'd be too far-fetched to suggest that Cohen made the form »recursive«, reduplicating through means of performance the very structure of the form, while at the same time intensifying by »repetition«...
On leonardcohenforum, many said they feel this song is the very heart of Dear Heather. That's my impression as well. The »Villanelle« is the central piece of Dear Heather, the axis by which all the possibly »deep-wezzing« interpretations of the rest are given a much more hopeful turn.
»We rise...« – that's not ascension, transmigration to an afterlife, it's growing, learning, getting better, well within this world.

The repetition in »Villanelle For Our Time« is somewhat related to the use of mantras in meditation, but there's nothing in Dear Heather that's either muzak or trance-music. The repetitions serve rather to insure that the most important points will be meditated on, in the western sense of ruminate. They're not intended to assist in clearing the mind, but to focus it, – on what's really important.

song index