SUZANNE-Too
According to the writer, Leonard Cohen, he wrote this song in 1966 and his album came out in 1968. I seem to have an earlier recollection, which is probably wrong, but since it doesn’t impact the story I will go along with those dates. I do remember that when I heard the song it grabbed me in some very deep parts of my innards.
“For she's touched your perfect body with her mind”
That line was the coupe de grace and turned me into putty.
That was the background, so here’s the story. In 1968 I was traveling to Majorca two to three times a year to handle an import business that I was running after my father passed away. I would spend three weeks at the Victoria Hotel, primarily a tourist hotel, and conduct my business meetings in the mornings and late afternoons.
Majorca is the largest of a group of islands in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain, known as the Balearic Islands and at the time I was going there the area was known as the “Scandinavian Riviera”. There were, therefore, a lot of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian women of all ages that would arrive by the planeload and the social activities at the hotel included a live band and dancing every evening. Working in Spain meant that there was a siesta built into the workday where the time after lunch was designed for rest so the afternoon workday didn’t continue until after 4 PM. Dinner hours usually started after 8 PM. Except for the tourist hotels, the luncheon meal was usually a much larger event than the evening meal, which was usually a light supper.
On one particular night in June, which just happened to be my birthday, I was hanging around the nightclub part of the hotel, listening to the music and dancing with some of the single women that were there and generally feeling alone because there was no one there that I had ever met before and I somehow wasn’t very interested in anyone there.
Immediately adjacent to the dance hall was the outdoor pool and I wandered out there to be alone with my thoughts. As I was sitting alone in the semi-lit area a group of four people, three young men and a young lady came out of the dance hall and were frolicking around the pool. I was immediately attracted to the young lady who was the center of attention of the three men without seeming to be associated with any one man. They ran around and “frolicked” for quite awhile around the pool area and I didn’t think that they noticed me nor did I feel that I inhibited them in any way. They were not speaking English but I could not identify what language they were speaking. The best I can do to describe the young lady is to say that she seemed the “free spirit” type and she was certainly in control of her surroundings and her companions.
The next day was a holiday in Spain so I took off early in the morning to visit some tourist attraction on the other side of the Island with some friends and I didn’t get back to the hotel until late in the afternoon. As soon as I walked into the hotel the Concierge asked where I’d been because there was a young lady asking for me all day long.
I went to my room to change for dinner. There was a knock on my door and there she stood, the beautiful young lady that I had seen the night before at the poolside. She told me that she had been looking for me all day and that she had wanted to meet me since she saw me last night and that she thought I looked so sad last night and that she was leaving in half an hour on a boat that she pointed out to me in the harbor and that she was German. There is no way to describe the range of emotions I went through during that 15 or 20 minutes that we stood and talked and I honestly don’t even recall the conversation but I will never forget the face or the outfit she was wearing.
We hugged and said good-bye.
That evening I stopped by the Concierge’s desk and asked him if he knew who the young lady was but all he could tell me was that her name was Suzanne.
“For she's touched your perfect body with her mind”
“For she's touched your perfect body with her mind”
That line was the coupe de grace and turned me into putty.
That was the background, so here’s the story. In 1968 I was traveling to Majorca two to three times a year to handle an import business that I was running after my father passed away. I would spend three weeks at the Victoria Hotel, primarily a tourist hotel, and conduct my business meetings in the mornings and late afternoons.
Majorca is the largest of a group of islands in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain, known as the Balearic Islands and at the time I was going there the area was known as the “Scandinavian Riviera”. There were, therefore, a lot of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian women of all ages that would arrive by the planeload and the social activities at the hotel included a live band and dancing every evening. Working in Spain meant that there was a siesta built into the workday where the time after lunch was designed for rest so the afternoon workday didn’t continue until after 4 PM. Dinner hours usually started after 8 PM. Except for the tourist hotels, the luncheon meal was usually a much larger event than the evening meal, which was usually a light supper.
On one particular night in June, which just happened to be my birthday, I was hanging around the nightclub part of the hotel, listening to the music and dancing with some of the single women that were there and generally feeling alone because there was no one there that I had ever met before and I somehow wasn’t very interested in anyone there.
Immediately adjacent to the dance hall was the outdoor pool and I wandered out there to be alone with my thoughts. As I was sitting alone in the semi-lit area a group of four people, three young men and a young lady came out of the dance hall and were frolicking around the pool. I was immediately attracted to the young lady who was the center of attention of the three men without seeming to be associated with any one man. They ran around and “frolicked” for quite awhile around the pool area and I didn’t think that they noticed me nor did I feel that I inhibited them in any way. They were not speaking English but I could not identify what language they were speaking. The best I can do to describe the young lady is to say that she seemed the “free spirit” type and she was certainly in control of her surroundings and her companions.
The next day was a holiday in Spain so I took off early in the morning to visit some tourist attraction on the other side of the Island with some friends and I didn’t get back to the hotel until late in the afternoon. As soon as I walked into the hotel the Concierge asked where I’d been because there was a young lady asking for me all day long.
I went to my room to change for dinner. There was a knock on my door and there she stood, the beautiful young lady that I had seen the night before at the poolside. She told me that she had been looking for me all day and that she had wanted to meet me since she saw me last night and that she thought I looked so sad last night and that she was leaving in half an hour on a boat that she pointed out to me in the harbor and that she was German. There is no way to describe the range of emotions I went through during that 15 or 20 minutes that we stood and talked and I honestly don’t even recall the conversation but I will never forget the face or the outfit she was wearing.
We hugged and said good-bye.
That evening I stopped by the Concierge’s desk and asked him if he knew who the young lady was but all he could tell me was that her name was Suzanne.
“For she's touched your perfect body with her mind”
posted by Michael at
11:25:00 AM
1 Comments:
Dad, this is such a cool story. Is this why you love this song so much? Or was it just a happy coincidence?
By
Jessica, at 11:25 AM
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