Leonard Cohen - Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

Leonard CohenIB Y A M T H O K Y D e C U R T ISIalways experience m yself as falling apart,been assured b y this one-alone. H owever, the tw oand I’m taking emergency measures,” Leonextraordinary albums that followed, Songs From aard Cohen said fifteen years ago. “It’s comingRoom (1969), w hich includes his classic song “Bird onapart at every moment. I try Prozac. I try love.a W ire ,” and Songs o f Love and Hate (1971), providedI try drugs. I try Z en meditation. I try thew hatever pro of anyone may have required that themonastery. I try forgetting about all those strategiesgreatness o f his debut w as not a fluke.and going straight. A n d the place where the evaluationPart o f the reason w h y Cohen’s early w ork revealedhappens is where I w rite the songs,such a high degree o f achieve when I get to that place where Imentis that he w as an accom For fo u r decades,can’t be dishonest about what I’veplished literary figure before heCohen has been a modelbeen doing.”ever began to record. H is collec For four decades, Cohen hasofgut'wrenchingtions o f poetry, including Let Usbeen a model o f gut-wrenchingCompare Mythologies (1956) andemotional honestyemotional honesty. He is, w ith Flowers fo r Hitler (1964), and hisout question, one o f the mostnovels, including Beautiful Losersimportant and influential songw riters o f our time,(1966), had already brought him considerable recogni a figure w hose body o f w ork achieves greater depthstion in his native Canada. H is dual careers in music ando f m ystery and meaning as time goes on. H is songsliterature have continued to feed each other over thehave set a virtu ally unmatched standard in their seri decades - his songs revealing a literary quality rare inousness and range. Sex, spirituality, religion, pow erthe w orld o f popular music, and his p oetry and prose— he has relentlessly examined the largest issues ininformed b y a rich musicality.human lives, always w ith a full appreciation o f howOne o f the most revered figures o f the singer/elusive answers can be to the vexing questions hesongw riter movement o f the late sixties and earlyraises. But those questions, and the journey he hasseventies, Cohen soon developed a desire to movetraveled in seeking to address them, are the everbeyond the folk trappings o f that genre. B y tempera shifting substance o f his w ork, as w ell as the reasonsment and approach, he had always been closer to thew h y his songs never lose their overwhelming emo European art song - he once termed his w ork the “Euro tional force.pean blues.” A d d to that a fondness for country music,H is first album, Songs o f Leonard Cohen (1967),announced him as an undeniable major talent. A llquietness, restraint, and poetic intensity, its appear ance amid the psychedelic frenzy o f that year couldnot have made a starker point. It includes such songsas “Suzanne,” “Sisters o f M ercy,” “So Long, M arianne,”and “Hey, That’s N o W ay to Say Goodbye,” all nowlongstanding classics. I f Cohen had never recordedanother album, his daunting reputation w ould haveHe’s your man: Leonard Cohen in 1974an ear for Rfe?B-styled female background vocals, a slyappreciation for cabaret jazz, and a regard for rhythmnot often encountered in singer/songwriters, and theextent o f Cohen’s musical palette becomes clear. Eacho f Cohen’s albums reflects not simply the issues thatare on his mind as a w rite r but the sonic landscape hew ishes to explore, as w ell. The through-lines in hisw ork, o f course, his voice (“I w as born w ith the gift o f agolden voice,” he has sung) and lyrics (he has described

Cohen’s Newport Folk Festival debut, 1967: With Joni M itchell. . .and with Judy Collins and Columbia Records’ John Hammondbackstage with his nylon six-string . . .

InBirds on a wire: Cohen contemplates a flock of pigeons.him self as “the little Je w w ho w rote the Bible”),.are as dis tinctive as any in the w orld o f music.Cohen’s 1974 album, Js[ew S \in fo r the O ld Cerem ony,w hich includes “Chelsea Hotel #2,” a pointedly unsenti mental memoir o f his early years in N e w York C ity thatincluded a tryst w ith Jan is Joplin, found him making bolderuse é f orchestration, a contrast to the more stripped-downsound he had earlier preferred. Death o f a Ladies’ M an,his 1977 collaboration w ith Phil Spector, constitutes hismost extreme experiment. Spector’s monumental “W all o fSound” —theproducer, Cohen once quipped, “w as in his W ag nerian phase, w hen I had hoped to find him in his D ebussyphase” - proved an uncomfortable setting for Cohen’s typi cally elliptical and almost painfully intimate lyrics (termsthat, admittedly, w ould not apply to “Don’t G o Home W ithYour Hard-On,” on w hich Bob D ylan and A llen Ginsbergprovide backing vocals). O ver the years, Cohen has bitterlycomplained about Spector’s high-handed — and gun-wield ing —w ays, w hile occasionally expressing a kind o f grudgingaffection for the album’s uncharacteristic excesses. He hassummed it up as “a grotesque, eccentric little moment.”Recent Songs (1979) and V arious Positions (1984) returnedCohen to more recognizable sonic terrain, though the latteralbum, in a perhaps misguided nod to the trend at the timeo f its release, prominently incorporated synthesizers. Theobjections didn’t particularly bother Cohen. “People arealways inviting me to return to a former purity I w as neverable to claim,” he has said. Though not initially released inthe States, V arious Positions intludes “Hallelujah,” w hichhas since become one o f Cohen’s best-known, best-loved,and most frequently covered songs. (Versions b y J e ff Buckley and John Cale are especially notable.)A s the eighties and their garishness began to w ane,Cohen’s star began to rise once again. The listeners w ho hadgrow n up w ith him had reached an age at w hich they w antedto reexamine the music o f their past, and a new generationo f artists and fans discovered him, attracted by the dignity,ambition, and sheer quality o f his songs. It is remarkableto this day how often Cohen’s name comes up w hen youngsongw riters discuss their inspirations. Indeed, his w orkoften seems to reside in that realm o f the human heart thatexists outside o f time. Hence, it is timeless and always ripefo r4 isco v ery and rediscovery.Live at the Beacon Theatre, New York City

Cohen rose to the opportunity that his new audienceprovided b y releasing tw o consecutive albums, I ’m YourM an (1988) and The Future (1992), that not only rank amongthe finest o f his career but perfectly capture the texture o fparticularly complicated times. Cohen had long documentedthe high rate o f casualties in the love w ars, so the profoundanxieties generated by the A ID S crisis w ere no news to him.Songs like “A in ’t N o Cure for Love,” the w ry ly titled “I’m YourM an,” and, most explicitly, “Everybody K now s” (“Everybodyknows that the Plague is com ing/Everybody knows thatit’s moving fast/Everybody knows that the naked man andwom an are just a shining artifact o f the past”) depict Cohensurveying the contem porary erotic battleground and report'ing on it w ith characteristic perspective, insight, w ryness,and wisdom.Similarly, in the title track o f The Future, his immersionin Jew ish culture, obsession w ith C hristian imagery, anddeep commitment to Buddhist detachment rendered him anideal commentator on the approaching millennium and theapocalyptic fears it generated. A lon g w ith the album’s titletrack, “W aiting for the M iracle,” “Closing Time,” “Anthem ,”and “Dem ocracy” limned a cultural landscape rippling w ithdread but yearning for hope. “ There is a crack in everything,”Cohen sings in “Anthem ,” “ T hat’s how the light gets in.” Ourhuman imperfections, he seems to be saying, are finally w hatw ill bring us w hatever transcendence w e can attain.In a 1993 Rolling Stone profile, Cohen described w ritingthe songs on The Future and revealed a good deal about hisnotoriously painstaking process o f composition. “ The songw ill yield i f you stick w ith it long enough,” he explained. “Butlong enough is w ay beyond any reasonable idea you mighthave o f w hat long enough is. It takes that long to peel thebullshit off. E very one o f those songs began as a song thatw as easier to w rite. A lot o f them w ere recorded w ith easierarrangements and easier lyrics. . . . ‘The Future’ began as asong called ‘I f You Could See W h at’s Com ing N ext.’ Thatpoint o f v ie w w as a deflected point o f view . I didn’t have theguts to say, ‘I’ve seen the future, baby/It is murder.’”Since then, Cohen has released Ten Flew Songs (2001) andDear Heather (2004), as w ell as Blue A lert (2006), a collabo'ration on w hich Cohen produced and cow rote songs w ithhis partner and former background singer A n jan i Thomas,w ho provides the vocals. A ll three albums have only solidi'fied his place in the pantheon o f contem porary songwriters.A t seventy-three, Cohen continues to produce compellingwork, w hile enjoying the honors that deservedly come toartists w ho have achieved legendary status. Documentaries,awards, tribute albums, the ongoing march o f artists eager torecord his songs, and, finally, induction into the Rock and RollH allFame all acknowledge the peerless contributionCohen has made to w hat one o f his titles aptly calls “ TheTow er o f Song.”A n d he is still laboring hard in the tower. “I think as longas you can crawl into the workshop, you should do the w ork,”he has said. “I always saw those old guys coming dow n tow ork, w hatever job I. happened to be in. Something aboutthat always got to me. I’d like to be one o f those old guysgoing to w ork.” &ABOVE: Barefoot on the beach in 1997. OPPOSITE: Looking hands-some in 1988.

Leonard Cohen I B Y A M T H O K Y DeCURTIS I always experience myself as falling apart, and I’m taking emergency measures,” Leon- ard Cohen said fifteen years ago. “It’s coming apart at every moment. I try Prozac. I try love. I try drugs. I try Zen meditation. I try the monastery. I try forgetting about all those strategies and going .