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Leonard Cohen

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VanGogh
Sarcastic Coffee Aficionado
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The great Leonard Cohen, CC GOQ was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist died today at the age of 82.

His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. His work spanned over 50 years! wow!

RIP our beautiful poet ....

Here is one of his most enduring song that has been covered by multiple artists. Hallelujah (Audio)



Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy…
LYFBUZ
Troublemaker
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I just saw this on the news. Huge loss. RIP Leonard Cohen. Brilliant songwriter!!!


VanGogh
Sarcastic Coffee Aficionado
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Quote by LYFBUZ
I just saw this on the news. Huge loss. RIP Leonard Cohen. Brilliant songwriter!!!


Thank you .... I've been quite teary about this.

Van
elizabethblack
Awesome Lady
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This indeed is a great loss. He was a wonderful talent and so gifted. R.I.P
pentup47
Active Ink Slinger
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We're missing you already, Leonard! RIP.
mranonymous7
Active Ink Slinger
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when I work at Texas Instruments the parents of a girl I work with were friends with henry Mancini and he'd been their house guest over the weekend. she'd know him since she was a small child and called him the honorary southern title of uncle. she said that he spit so bad when he talked that you needed a towel to hold a conversation with him...lol...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRu4aLAG2AI)
Master_Jonathan
Active Ink Slinger
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I first heard this song, believe it or not, on Dancing with the Stars! I don't even remember who danced to it, I just heard the song playing and then I Googled it and heard it again on YouTube. I fell in love with it and now I have it on my computer playlist!

Thank you Mr. Cohen for gracing us with your immeasurable talent. Rest In Peace - heaven is a more beautiful place tonight because of you.
Dancing_Doll
Alpha Blonde
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RIP to a great icon. We think first of his music, but if you've never read his novels, 'The Favourite Game' and 'Beautiful Losers', you're missing out on some truly beautiful literary works, as obscure and mildly controversial as they may have been for their time. They left their mark on me, many years ago.

Rest easy, Leonard Cohen, someone who always knew just the right words.

Guest
Lurker
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Although he said he knew his end was near, and wrote a letter about his Marianne when she passed this summer,
his passing still hits me hard. Thank goodness for YouTube. I know we will never hear another new word from
him, but there is lots there to listen to, over and over.

As some of you may know, I have posted many videos of his, and he recently inspired a poem I wrote for a special someone.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-poems/memories-of-us.aspx
Unknown User
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Written for another board I'm on, but I don't mind posting it here as well:
-------------------

I’m not entirely sure where I first heard of Leonard Cohen, but there are two options, both in 1983 (hence my uncertainty as to which came first).

In 1983 I was taking Grade 13 English in high school and chose my school’s alternative “B” stream. Instead of studying “classics” like Shakespeare and Chaucer, we did film studies and an extended Canlit unit based off of Margaret Atwood’s Survival, a critical study of Canadian literature (and Robertson Davies’ novel Fifth Business, which launched another me into another favorite writer). One of the stories she analyzes in the book is Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers. I vaguely knew that name at the time, but didn’t know much about him beyond he was some kind of poet. I might have heard some of his songs as well, but nothing sticks in my memory. Reading about (and eventually reading) Beautiful Losers got me interested.

However, that same fall also saw the debut of “I Am a Hotel”, a short TV movie produced by CITY-TV’s Moses Znaimer. The movie consisted of dance pieces based on 4 classic Cohen songs telling the stories of imaginary denizens of an old hotel (the King Edward in Toronto was the shooting location) framed by Cohen himself as “The Resident”, a kind of ghostly Greek chorus watching and reflecting on the stories. It was beautifully shot and introduced me to songs like Chelsea Hotel No. 2 and Suzanne. What I’m not sure of is whether I saw it first, or whether I watched it out of interest after reading about Cohen in English class.

Either way, I quickly became a fan. The following year his magnificent collection Book of Mercy and the album Various Positions both came out, both cementing his appeal for me. While Various Positions is now best known for introducing “Hallelujah”, it also included some other wonderful Cohen tracks like “Dance Me to the End of Love”, “Coming Back to You” and “If it Be Your Will”, all of which are, in my book, in the same league as “Hallelujah”. Book of Mercy, a collection of “psalms”, remains a favorite collection of his writing and I’ve been known to crack it out in church from time to time.

Skip ahead to 1992 and the release of his brilliant album “The Future” which ranks as one of my favorite albums by anyone (“Closing Time” upthread is from it). At the time, I was a regular listener to Peter Gzowski (a habit I picked up from my mother). Since I was working by then, I usually just heard The Best of Morningside, a digest version of his show Morningside that ran at bedtime. Cohen had been on the show before and he and Peter had a good rapport. This time, Gzowski brought him on for a full hour to discuss his career and the new album. I lay in the dark listening to them talk and hearing songs like “Democracy” and “The Future” for the first time (“Closing Time” had already debuted as a video on TV). Magical.

What is it that I like about Cohen?

He’s a true wordsmith, a craftsman who makes stunningly beautiful art with words. Even without the music, his songs ring as true and powerful as his actual poetry. And much of his poetry can be set to music (Suzanne began as a poem, for instance) to create incredible songs. Best example to come to mind right now: Singer-songwriter Buffy Saint-Marie has set the “Magic is alive” passage from Beautiful Losers to music. Even the novel Beautiful Losers (I must hang my head in shame and admit that I have not read “The Favorite Game”, his other novel) reads like a prose poem in many places while still managing to tell a story in novelistic fashion.

I quite simply cannot think of many modern writers of any kind, let alone songwriters, who can produce beauty with words quite as well as Leonard Cohen. And that includes Bob Dylan who, Nobel Prize notwithstanding, is still not quite in Cohen’s league IMHO. Of living poets, the only one that comes immediately to mind is Mary Oliver and given that she is only a year younger than Cohen, I'm not sure she will be with us much longer.

The man is gone but the music still goes on. Farewell, Leonard. And I think your room in the Tower of Song is going to be a lot closer to Hank’s that you thought.



-----

Footnotes for non-Canucks:

Yes, I said "Grade 13". When I was growing up, the province of Ontario was one of the last places on North America (if not Earth) to have five formal years of high school. That has since gone by the wayside, though some refer to taking an extra year of high school to boost one's marks as "Grade 13".

And Peter Gzowski was a popular radio (and occasionally TV) host here in Canada through the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Most of his career was spent with the CBC, our government-owned public broadcaster, hosting a three hour morning show called "Morningside". A hardcore smoker almost all his life, he died of emphysema in 2002.
69Kisses96
Active Ink Slinger
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This is my favorite Cohen song, here sang by the wondrous Jennifer Warnes and Leonard Cohen himself.

sprite
Her Royal Spriteness
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It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening

I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?

Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You'd been to the station to meet every train, and
You came home without Lili Marlene

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody's wife

Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well, I see Jane's awake
She sends her regards

And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way

If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Well, your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear

Sincerely, L Cohen

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

Unknown User
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Quote by sprite
It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening

...

Sincerely, L Cohen


Ever heard Tori Amos sing Famous Blue Raincoat? Best track on the Tower of Song tribute album.

sprite
Her Royal Spriteness
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Quote by seeker4


Ever heard Tori Amos sing Famous Blue Raincoat? Best track on the Tower of Song tribute album.



yes, that's how i discovered him. i have several of his cds now. he's pretty brilliant.

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

Regnadkcin
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I am a big Leonard fan. My favorite version of Halleujua is by John Cale.
Unknown User
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I remember hearing the Cale for the first time. It blew me away. I liked Cohen's version, I LOVED Cale's. The simplicity of it, just Cale and his piano, was part of that. It let the melody and words come out all the more clearly than some of the more heavily orchestrated versions. While I know that it's the favorite of Cohen and Anjani Thomas (a longtime professional and personal partner of his), k. d. Lang's is just a gussied up version of Cale's to my ear, though her voice is wonderful.

Another Cohen song where a cover is by far my favorite version is "First We Take Manhattan". Jennifer Warnes gave it a blues-y edge and brought in Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar to create a vivid, powerful rendition. Not to diss Cohen's original, but I think his is good and hers is great.
69Kisses96
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Good call, seeker. BTW, just by coincidence, my newest Netflix disc came the other day, and it was Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a tribute concert with interviews with Leonard Cohen and his celebrity fans. The interviews were the highlights. No Judy Collins. No Jennifer Warnes. No Joan of Arc.