Mark Steyn’s claim to be a one-man global content provider is justified not only by the verve of his gloomy analyses of society, but also by his magnificent knowledge of the popular music business (gained in part from his earlier time as a hospital DJ and then theatre critic).

Does anyone else write superb pieces like this one – about a Leonard Cohen song -combining such knowledge and affection?

It starts with the difficulties of finding words in English to rhyme with love for song-writing purposes:

The constraints of language help define our notion of romance, and in English we’re more constrained than most. There are just four and a half rhymes for "love," approximately three-quarters of which offer very meagre possibilities: "above," "dove," "glove," "shove," and (the half-rhyme) "of," pronounced "uv."

The last is the reason why, in English songs, "love" is a thing you spend a lot of time "dreaming uv." "Shove" is of limited application, except in ballads for spousal abusers. I think P G Wodehouse was the first to get any mileage out of it in a comedy song called "Tulip Time In Sing-Sing":

So just bob my hair and shove me
Where I know the warders love me…

Good grief. Who knows things like that?

He then weaves all this into Leonard Cohen’s song Dance Me To The End Of Love.

Which, it turns out, has echoes of the Holocaust.

Treat yourself.

Read the whole thing.