Dylan, Cohen, and Ginsberg

I had once wondered if two of the great folk poets of the 60's, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, had ever collaborated together. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only had the two of them made a song together, but it featured Allen Ginsberg. The song appeared on Cohen's 1977 album, Death of A Ladies' Man, and is called "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On. Yes, three great poets got together and composed something, to borrow Professor Wilson's terminology, so "devious" it was practically obscene. The chorus has the three of them belting out "don't go home with your hard-on."

 The first verse runs "I was born in a beauty salon/My father was a dresser of hair/My mother was a girl you could call on." When searching for meaning in such a absurd tune, I came across a comment that suggested that the song was about the narrator's parents both being involved in brothels. The father is a pimp and the mother a prostitute, but it is veiled under the metaphor of a beauty salon. It brought to mind, to me, the concept of the subterranean that the Professor frequently discusses. The narrative of a brothel is something communicated in code, intended for a select  audience. 

I was also reminded of the overt masculinity present in the song, and its something that pervades beat literature. The authors we've read and are reading are mostly male, and call on a male legacy of writers like Walt Whitman. "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On" is such an aggressively male song, and the strain of overtly masculine themes can be found throughout the literature we read. Below are the song and lyrics. 

Don't Go Home With Your Hard On Lyrics