Looking at the Late Late Show through a semi-precious stone

June 4, 2017 12:44 PM

This is a song for a girl named Nancy who was a real girl—who went into the bathroom of her father’s house, took her brother’s shotgun and blew her head off. Age of 21. Maybe this is an arrogant thing to say, but maybe she did it because there weren’t enough people saying what I’ve been saying.*

“It is her beauty and bravery that shine through. Many young women of the time came up against the hard limitations of family and society, although not every confrontation ended so sadly."

Musician Anna McGarrigle knew Nancy.

The Challies link has an evangelical Christian viewpoint, but includes details of Nancy's story from her nephew.

An Italian-language version of the song is particularly popular.

Cohen has gone to meet her in the House of Mystery.

* (It is in fact an arrogant thing to say but we still love you, Leonard. And you might be right.)

posted by Rust Moranis (9 comments total)

A tragic story, to be sure.

Darkly ironic that the "social conventions" that led to Nancy having to give up her child are borne of the same religion that the author tries to convert the reader to at the end of the article.
posted by dazed_one at 12:53 PM on June 4, 2017 [17 favorites]

So after two tragic suicides, caused by both mental illness and christian social convention, the whole family converts to a harder form of Christianity that says people who kill themselves go to hell?
OOF.
Nancy didn't stand a chance. And her Nephew who never met her turning her story into a bid to convert people is really really gross.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:56 PM on June 4, 2017 [40 favorites]

That last bit was really fucking weird.
posted by corb at 2:14 PM on June 4, 2017 [12 favorites]

Anna McGarrigle: Later I found out Nancy had had a child with her boyfriend, a young cadet at a military college. Her parents made her give the child up for adoption and this was probably the reason she killed herself. Ten years later to the day, her father took his own life, also with a gun.

These things run in families. Twisted religiosity may be another manifestation of the mental illness, or the last bulwark against it.
posted by Modest House at 2:17 PM on June 4, 2017 [11 favorites]

the whole family converts to a harder form of Christianity that says people who kill themselves go to hell?

in fact, they are evangelical Protestants, so no, they did not. I'm not sure why you would think so. This is a blog post linked to and endorsed by Challies; you can check out the part that goes Do Christians who commit suicide go to hell? The short answer is “No!”

as to the family's sins in choosing a gross church to belong to, which they certainly did, I don't think I really have it in me to blame a fifteen-year-old boy whose older sister killed herself with his gun and whose father also killed himself (with whose gun that time, Tim Challies does not relate) for having whatever psychological reactions he had. I suppose it might be a great mystery why a boy with a dead sister and a dead father might have been drawn to a religion that talks a good game about resurrection and an afterlife and raised a son who felt the same. doesn't seem like one to me, though.

Now that that son is all grown up and writing religious posts he can be judged for his bad blog and his bad religion like everyone else. but that was a remarkably inoffensive piece he wrote, considering.
posted by queenofbithynia at 2:24 PM on June 4, 2017 [15 favorites]

So sad and kicked me right in the gut to find out what that song was really about. I had that album many years ago and love Leonard Cohen's work. I can so relate to the story because I was an unwed mother who gave up a child for adoption in the 60s, and while I was not actively suicidal, did not care if I lived or died and got involved in risky behaviors and promiscuity after losing my child. I had been a nice Catholic girl who thought my one and only first boyfriend would marry me, and when he did not, I fell apart, suffered severe postpartum depression, and lost my firstborn son. I know Nancy's despair, and am just lucky I did not end up like her.

I went on to marry, have three more sons, a long good marriage, and am now happily reunited with my oldest son, but the scars of that experience will remain forever. There are many, many women with a similar story and similar pain, as I have learned through years of involvement in the adoption reform movement. This is not an isolated incident, but all too common given the way unwed mothers were treated. May Nancy and Leonard both rest in peace.
posted by mermayd at 2:40 PM on June 4, 2017 [39 favorites]

Mannnnn, and I was having one of my better days.

I really want to find out how I failed so badly dusting with my comprehensive spring cleaning.
posted by Samizdata at 3:36 PM on June 4, 2017

I had a friend once who became pregnant as an unwed teen, and she found herself surrounded by "helpful" and "generous" people who manipulated her into carrying to term and putting her child up for adoption instead of having an abortion to serve their prolife agenda, but she only realized years later that she'd been used to further a conservative political agenda. This story hits so close to home for me, it hurts, but I'm grateful to see these kinds of issues discussed more publicly because people have a hard time talking about these kinds of complex failures of social support and the roles played by mental health issues and communication failure/relationship breakdown.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:13 AM on June 5, 2017 [4 favorites]

Okay, so I'm somewhat obtuse but I had to read the whole bit about his dad getting a new life three or four times to fully understand what he was talking about. In fact, at first I thought his dad was ill in some way and the father's suicide gave him a needed organ or something.
posted by teleri025 at 7:16 AM on June 5, 2017