Leonard Cohen RIP

Just watched a So Long Maryann video.. broken up, somewhat.
Egads, I liked the guy.

She also died a few short months ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/07/so-long-marianne-leonard-cohen-writes-to-muse-just-before-her-death

It's a cold, rainy night here in Mexico City.
Very proper for him to leave us in this horrible November.

Cohen was a great poet-philosopher-musician.

https://youtu.be/S34cVkL6zCE

"Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing
Through the graves the wind is blowing
Freedom soon will come
Then we'll come from the shadows"

I've always had a soft spot for deep voices. Probably why I keep talking with my ex, kidding, ok, partly. We're well over our lives together, but share some stuff in memory, and music is part of that.

In the Q interviews with Adam and the cantor, it seemed as if all the edges were being pulled together.

Thanks for the link. I've followed partisans off and on, in various descriptions in books but also in movies, which of course have a bias. I know little, but do get some of them were very brave. In Italy I was for them, had I known about them.

Thank you Leonard for everything.

Personally, seeing some youtube but also putting on my old Leonard cd, is a buffet to this time of weird change in the US.

I'm playing a couple of his cds. Fits my mood.

Sad.

Nobody like him. So good.

At least he kept active up until the end. I always found him quite cheerful in a gallow's humour sort of way.

He will be missed. RIP.

dayum, another great. ( Now He shoulda won the Nobel for poetry).
"The Grocer of Gloom" they would call him.

I recall once, I was up at McGill University for a conference I saw a hanging thing about how Cohen was a champion of debate at McGill.

Ironically, the first time I heard Cohen was when I heard Suzanne as a teenager. (Un)fortunately, I had already heard the Dutch translation for this song, by the singer/songwriter/cabaretier Herman van Veen. (which basically boils down to an almost literal translation of the original, which I personally think is a rather amazing feat), and, to my eternal shame, vividly recall thinking to myself that I didn't appreciate some american hack copying the work of great dutch artists.

Yes, I was young. It's still a very poor excuse.

I (re)acquianted with mr. Cohen around the start of the new century, when I first learned that Jeff Buckley's version was not the original. I would love to say that I was immediately enthralled, but sadly, no. This was a time in my life I spend most time either listening to ambient house and Enya/Vangelis.

It wasn't until perhaps 9 or 10 years ago that I truly started to listen in depth to mr. Cohen's music. And I finally had a 'favorite artist'. I fell in love, not just with Suzanne, or with Hallelujah, but with gems like Bird on the Wire, Story of Isaac, The Partisan (I love that quote mr. Baezer), as well as his entire double album Songs of Love and Hate.

And that is just the beginning, isn't it? There are so many amazing lyrics to enjoy.

Mr. Cohen, I will miss you, but thankfully, your legacy will forever keep you fresh in our collective memories.

I can only hope you will receive the honor of receiving a Nobel prize for your oeuvre as well. Mr. Dylan may very well deserve one, I won't gainsay that, but in my opinion, you do as well.

Thank you for making my life better with your music.

Judy Collins

Leonard, thank you for everything--for bringing me this song in 1966, coming to my door with your deep gaze and your conviction that you could not sing and did not know if this was a song--and for alll the times you brought me songs to sing, which no one else had heard-- and for asking me why I was not writing my own. I owe you everything and will never be able to repay you for your brilliance and your friendship and your kindness. With Love Forever, Judy

Suzanne takes you down
To her place by the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
And that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
She gets you on her wavelength
And lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
You want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust her
For she's touched your perfect body
With her mind

CBC Rewind is replaying their radio doc on Leonard Cohen - Various Positions

it's livestreaming on the radio now
also available by podcast

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/rewind/leonard-cohen-various-positions-part-1-1.2568099

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/rewind/leonard-cohen-various-positions-part-2-1.2577111

___

q spent about 2 hours with interviews they pulled together over the previous 12 or so hours

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-friday-november-11-2016-1.3845596




I really can't recommend all of these enough.

The focus on the early years and the poetry is tremendous.

The musicians who came in to the studio early in the day were generous and insightful.

Goodbye Leonard Cohen, you will be missed and long appreciated for all you gave.


For more on Leonard Cohen, here's edgarblythe's lyric thread from a while back.
www.able2know.org/topic/4990-1

I still add to this thread from time to time.

It's like our visit to the moon
Or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing
If you really want to go that far

Last lines of Death of a Ladies Man, from an album of the same name. Done in collaboration with Phil Specter. Specter drove Cohen off at the point of a gun near the end of the project.

Cohen did not write all the songs he recorded. I can think of The Partisan, The Lost Canadian, Always. And a co writer sometimes: Came so Far for Beauty.
Here is one of his songs by Judy Collins that he never recorded, to my knowledge.