Tag: leonard cohen

We’ve been hearing a lot of Leonard Cohen lately.  Today, Terry Gross’ Fresh Air podcast does a reprise of a 2006 interview:

Today, Leonard Cohen — on vinyl, this time!– continues:  “Old Skin For The New Ceremony” (1974)*  and “The Best Of” (1975) …

* TRIVIA FOOTNOTE: Guitar accompaniment on the “Old Skin …” album is provided by Ralph Gibson, one of my early photography mentors; worked with him in New York when I spent part of the summer at the upstate communal photography farm as part of a cross-country adventure (aka “The Great Tunafish Expedition“).

Gotta add one more … our good friend Jim sends along this link to an astonishing and moving account of one person’s experience of the impact of Leonard Cohen in his life:

http://www.avclub.com/article/dancing-end-leonard-cohen-245785

Thanks, Jim.

My Leonard Cohen obsession continues …

Soon after I moved to Los Angeles in the Sixties (before I had ever heard of Leonard Cohen, and well before his first album in 1967), I found an apartment just off Hollywood Boulevard. I often walked down that street to a small bookstore where I spent hours poring over mostly esoteric or foreign or little-known (to me) prose and poetry.  One day, I came upon a small book of poems by one Leonard Cohen, then unknown to me. Thumbing through the book I was struck by these brief lines:

Marita/Please find me/I am almost 30

(I took the book home with me.  However, I have searched for some years for that book, but … too many moves over the years, too many friends with good intentions who borrowed both albums and books … I suspect that the poem was included in Cohen’s 1968 “Leonard Cohen: Selected Poems, 1956-1968“, but it is hard to find and/or pretty expensive now.)

Much later I was to find that Cohen was said to have written these lines either on the wall of an alley beside, or in the mens’ room of, a Montreal bar (see photo at top). 

He went on to expand the poem, which you can hear now:

More on this here and here.

And I believe the origin of the poem is discussed in this National Film Board of Canada documentary, made in 1965 but discovered by myself only four or five years ago:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/ladies_and_gentlemen_mr_leonard_cohen/

I also see that copies of this film are showing up on YouTube:

Finally, in the course of my Internet travels, Father John Misty (of “I Love You, Honeybear” fame, one of my favorites from about 2013) has issued this homage: 

Today Quartz publishes this Spotify playlist.  You can see its entire article here.  

Finally, here is some background on “Anthem”, one of the Cohen songs I keep returning to.  And let’s add the lyrics while we are at it …

After hearing more Leonard Cohen until the wee hours of the morning, I streamed more from my server this morning upon awakening, and then most recently, Kim and I spent from 12:30 – 3:00pm listening to his “Live in London” album, issued in 2009 after that 2008 concert.  That album, for newcomers to Cohen or just about anyone else, would be my recommendation for the best introduction to his spread of music over the years, performed with some of the best backing and musicianship you will ever hear and with Cohen in fine, matured “voice”.  The Live in London concert is also available with video on DVD for the full effect.  Another great introduction to Cohen would be the 2005 “I’m Your Man” film, mostly featuring covers, but excellent covers, of some of his work.

And here is a recent KCRW (our old hometown radio station in Santa Monica) interview, thought to be one of his last:

(By the way, we are hearing reports that Cohen actually passed away on Monday, but that his death was not announced until yesterday.)

Leonard Cohen, R.I.P.

A post about Leonard Cohen would normally be something reserved for my music blog.  But …

Early this afternoon, I played Leonard’s new album, “You Want It Darker” in its entirety for the first time, sharing it with Kim as we tried to relax from the intensity of this week.  We had both heard tracks here and there since its release in late October, but this was the first “real” listening.  After the album play was completed, we stopped and talked about it for quite some time, stunned by the incredible poetry and effect of the music.  We dove onto the Internet to find the lyrics to what we had just heard.  I visited his official website for more information, confirming that he was now 82, yet he now seems to be at the very height of his powers.  We talked about how the album’s music could be seen as a premonition or exploration of death that would someday come.   And we welcomed his music as an alternative to the shock of the political events of this week and how the latter has been dominating all conversation and thought.

Later on this evening, after watching the news and talking by phone with Ivi for an hour, I returned to the Leonard Cohen website to find an announcement posted five hours earlier, informing us that Leonard had just passed away.

Here is the title track to the new album.  I will probably be adding more from this album and much of his previous work to my music blog in posts in the days to come.

I must add that Leonard Cohen’s music — along with only a handful of other performers and composers (Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, J. S. Bach all come to mind) — would be among that which I would select to take with me to that mythical “desert island”.

Leonard Cohen, R.I.P.