Leonard Norman Cohen
, CC, GOQ (born September 21, 1934) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often deals with the exploration of religion, isolation, sexuality and complex interpersonal relationships. He is extremely well-regarded by critics for his literary accomplishments and for producing an output of work of high artistic quality over a five-decade career. [1]
Musically, Cohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1967 album, Songs of Leonard Cohen
) were rooted in European folk music. [2] In the 1970s, his material encompassed pop, cabaret and world music. Since the 1980s his high baritone voice has evolved into lower registers (bass baritone and bass), with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers.
Over 2,000 renditions of Cohen's songs have been recorded. Cohen has been inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. While giving the speech at his induction into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008, Lou Reed described Cohen as belonging to the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters". [3]
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Early life
Cohen was born in 1934 in
Westmount, Montreal, Quebec, into a middle-class
Jewish family. His father was of Polish ancestry. His mother, of
Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, emigrated from Lithuania.
[4] He grew up in
Westmount on the
Island of Montreal. His father, Nathan Cohen, owned a substantial Montreal clothing store, and died when Leonard was nine years old. Like many other Jewish families with names like Cohen, Kahn, and Kagan, as well as legendary singer, The Legendary Danny O'Doul, Cohen's family claimed descent from the
Kohanim: "I had a very
Messianic childhood", he told Richard Goldstein in 1967. "I was told I was a descendant of
Aaron, the high priest."
[5] He attended
Herzliah High School, where he studied with poet
Irving Layton. As a teenager he learned to play the
guitar, subsequently forming a
country-folk group called the Buckskin Boys. His father's will provided Leonard with a modest
trust income, sufficient to allow him to pursue his literary ambitions.
Poetry
In 1951, Cohen enrolled at
McGill University, where he became president of the
McGill Debating Union. Literary influences during this time included
Yeats,
Whitman and
Henry Miller.
[6] His first published book of
poetry,
Let Us Compare Mythologies
(1956), was published under
Louis Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series while Cohen was still an undergraduate student.
The Spice-Box of Earth
(1961) made him well known in poetry circles, especially in his native Canada.
After completing an undergraduate degree, Cohen spent a term in McGill's law school and a year (1956-7) at
Columbia University.
Cohen applied a strong work ethic to his early and keen literary ambitions. He wrote poetry and fiction through much of the 1960s, and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances. After moving to
Hydra, a Greek island, Cohen published the poetry collection
Flowers for Hitler
(1964), and the novels
The Favourite Game
(1963) and
Beautiful Losers
(1966).
The Favourite Game
is an autobiographical
bildungsroman
about a young man who discovers his identity through writing.
Recording career
1960s and 1970s
In 1967, Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer-songwriter. During the 60s, he was a fringe figure in
Andy Warhol's Factory crowd. Warhol speculated that Cohen had spent time listening to
Nico in clubs and that this had influenced his musical style.
[7] His song "
Suzanne" became a hit for
Judy Collins and was for many years his most covered song. After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the attention of
Columbia Records representative
John H. Hammond.
Cohen's first album,
Songs of Leonard Cohen
(1967), was too dark to be a commercial success but was widely acclaimed by folk music buffs. He became a cult name in the UK, where the album spent over a year on the album charts. He followed it with
Songs from a Room
(1969) (featuring the often recorded "
Bird on the Wire"),
Songs of Love and Hate
(1971),
Live Songs
(1973) and
New Skin for the Old Ceremony
(1974).
In 1971, Cohen's music was used in the soundtrack to
Robert Altman's film
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
. Cohen had been in Nashville when Altman phoned to ask permission to use some tracks off
Songs of Leonard Cohen
. Coincidentally, earlier that same day, Cohen had viewed Altman's film,
Brewster McCloud
, in a Nashville theater. He hadn't paid attention to the credits, though; when Altman asked permission to use Cohen's songs in his new film, Cohen asked him who, exactly, he was. Altman mentioned
MASH
, but Cohen had never heard of it. Altman then told him of the lesser-known
Brewster McCloud
. Cohen, likely astonished, replied, "Listen, I just came out of the theater. I saw it twice; you can have anything of mine you want!"
[8]
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cohen toured the United States, Canada and Europe. Beginning around 1974, his collaboration with pianist and arranger
John Lissauer created a live sound praised by the critics. During this time, Cohen toured twice with
Jennifer Warnes as a back-up singer (in 1972 and 1979). Warnes would become a fixture on Cohen's future albums and she recorded an album of Cohen songs in 1987,
Famous Blue Raincoat
.
[9] Laura Branigan also sang back-up vocals with his 1976 tour band, but she never recorded with him.
In 1977, Cohen released
Death of a Ladies' Man
(note the plural possessive case; one year later in 1978, Cohen released a volume of poetry with the coyly revised title,
Death of a Lady's Man
). The album was produced by
Phil Spector, well known as the inventor of the "
wall of sound" technique, in which pop music is backed with thick layers of instrumentation, an approach very different from Cohen's usually minimalist instrumentation. The recording of the album was fraught with difficulty; Spector reportedly mixed the album in secret studio sessions, and Cohen said Spector once threatened him with a crossbow. Cohen thought the end result to be "grotesque",
[10] but also "semi-virtuous".
[11]
In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional
Recent Songs
. Produced by Cohen himself and
Henry Lewy (
Joni Mitchell's sound engineer) the album included performances by a jazz-fusion band introduced to Cohen by Mitchell and oriental instruments (
oud, Gypsy
violin and
mandolin). In 2001 Cohen released an album of live recordings of songs from his 1979 tour, entitled
Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979
.
1980s
In 1984, Cohen released
Various Positions,
including "
Dance Me to the End of Love" and the often recorded "
Hallelujah". Columbia declined to release the album in the United States, where Cohen's popularity had declined in previous years. Throughout his career, Cohen's music has sold better in Europe and Canada than in the U.S.; he once satirically expressed how touched he is at the modesty the American company showed in promoting his records.
In 1986 he appeared in the episode
French Twist
of the TV series
Miami Vice.
In 1987,
Jennifer Warnes's tribute album
Famous Blue Raincoat
helped restore Cohen's career in the U.S., and the following year he released
I'm Your Man,
which marked a drastic change in his music.
Synthesizers ruled the album and Cohen's lyrics included more social commentary and dark humour. It was Cohen's most acclaimed and popular since
Songs of Leonard Cohen
, and
"First We Take Manhattan" and the title song became two of his most popular songs.
1990s
The use of the album track "
Everybody Knows" (co-written by
Sharon Robinson) in the 1990 film
Pump Up the Volume
helped to expose Cohen's music to a younger audience. The song was also featured prominently in fellow countryman
Atom Egoyan's 1994 film,
Exotica
. In 1992, Cohen released
The Future
, which urges (often in terms of
biblical prophecy) perseverance, reformation, and hope in the face of grim prospects. Three tracks from the album - "
Waiting for the Miracle", "The Future" and "Anthem" - were featured in the movie
Natural Born Killers
.
In the title track, Cohen prophesies impending political and social collapse, reportedly as his response to the
L.A. unrest of 1992: "I've seen the future, brother: It is murder." In "Democracy", Cohen criticizes America but says he loves it: "I love the country but I can't stand the scene." Further, he criticizes the American public's lack of interest in politics and addiction to television: "I'm neither left or right/I'm just staying home tonight/getting lost in that hopeless little screen".
Nanni Moretti's film
Caro diario
(1993) features "I'm Your Man", as Moretti himself rides his
Vespa along the streets of Rome.
In 1994, following a tour to promote
The Future
, Cohen retreated to the
Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, beginning what would become five years of seclusion at the center.
In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a
Rinzai Zen
Buddhist monk and took the
Dharma name
Jikan
, meaning 'silence'. He served as personal assistant to
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi. He left Mount Baldy in 1999.
2000s
Ten New Songs
In 2001, following the five years' seclusion as a Zen Buddhist
monk at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center, Cohen returned to music with
Ten New Songs
, featuring a heavy influence from producer and co-composer
Sharon Robinson. With this album, Cohen shed the relatively extroverted, engaged, and even optimistic outlook of
The Future
(the sole political track, “The Land of Plenty,” abandoning stern commandment for yearning but helpless prayer) to lament and seek acceptance of varieties of personal loss: the approach of death and the departure of love, romantic and even divine. ''Ten New Songs
cohesive musical style (perhaps absent from Cohen's albums since
Recent Songs'') owes much to Robinson’s involvement. The album includes the song "Alexandra Leaving", which is a striking transformation of the poem "
The God Abandons Antony", by the Greek poet
Constantine P. Cavafy. Although not Cohen’s bitterest album, it may rank as his most melancholic.
Dear Heather
In October 2004, Cohen released
Dear Heather
, largely a musical collaboration with jazz chanteuse (and current romantic partner)
Anjani Thomas, although Sharon Robinson returns to collaborate on three tracks (including a duet). As light as the previous album was dark,
Dear Heather
reflects Cohen's own change of mood - he has said in a number of interviews that his
depression has lifted in recent years, which he attributes to the aid of Zen Buddhism.
Dear Heather
is perhaps his least cohesive, and most experimental and playful album to date, and the stylings of some of the songs (especially the title track) frustrated many fans. In an interview following his induction into the Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame, Cohen explained that the album was intended to be a kind of notebook or scrapbook of themes, and that a more formal record had been planned for release shortly afterwards, but that this was put on ice by his legal battles with his ex-manager.
Blue Alert
Blue Alert
, an album of songs co-written by Anjani and Cohen, was released on May 23, 2006 to positive reviews. The album is sung by Anjani, who according to one reviewer "sounds like Cohen reincarnated as woman. . . . though Cohen doesn't sing a note on the album, his voice permeates it like smoke."
[12] The album includes a recent musical setting of Cohen's "As the mist leaves no scar", a poem originally published in
The Spice-Box of Earth
in 1961 and adapted by Spector into "True Love Leaves No Traces" on
Death of a Ladies' Man
.
Book of Longing
Cohen's book of poetry and drawings,
Book of Longing
, was published in May 2006; in March a
Toronto-based retailer offered signed copies to the first 1500 orders placed online, which saw the entire amount sold within hours. The book quickly topped bestseller lists in Canada. On May 13, 2006, Cohen made his first public appearance for thirteen years, at an in-store event at a bookstore in Toronto. Approximately 3000 people turned up for the event, causing the streets surrounding the bookstore to be closed. He sang two of his earliest and best-known songs: "So Long, Marianne" and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye", accompanied by the
Barenaked Ladies and
Ron Sexsmith. Also appearing with him was Anjani, the two promoting her new CD, along with his book.
[13]
2008 concert tour
January 13, 2008, Cohen quietly announced to fans a long-anticipated concert tour
[14]. The tour, Cohen's first in 15 years, began May 11 in
Fredericton, NB to wide critical acclaim, and was prolonged until Fall of 2009.
[15] The schedule encompassed Canada and Europe, including performances at
The Big Chill (music festival),
[16] the Montreal Jazz Festival, and on the Pyramid Stage at the 2008
Glastonbury Festival on 29 June 2008.
[17] His performance at Glastonbury was hailed by many as the highlight of the festival
[18], and his performance of 'Hallelujah' as the sun went down received a rapturous reception and a lengthy ovation from a packed Pyramid Stage field.
[19] He also played in Dublin in what has come to be regarded as a "milestone concert". The London performance was later released on CD and DVD under the title
Live in London.
The
Sydney Entertainment Centre show on January 28 sold out rapidly, which motivated promoters to later announce a second show at the venue. The first performance was well-received, and the audience of 12,000 responded with five standing ovations. Cohen gave generous credit to his touring band, his long-time collaborator and vocalist
Sharon Robinson, who was backed up by the Webb Sisters.
In January 2009, the tour arrived in New Zealand. Simon Sweetman in The
Dominion Post (Wellington) of 21 January wrote "It is hard work having to put this concert in to words so I'll just say something I have never said in a review before and will never say again: this was the best show I have ever seen." The first concert of the Australian tour took place at Rochford Winery in Victoria's
Yarra Valley on January 24 in perfect weather in front of an audience of about 7,000.
Hallelujah
On March 7, 2008,
Jeff Buckley’s version of Cohen's “
Hallelujah”, went to number 1 on the
iTunes chart after being performed by
Jason Castro on the seventh season of the television series
American Idol
.
[20] Another major boost for Cohen's song exposure came when singer-songwriter
Kate Voegele released her version of "Hallelujah" from her 2007
Don't Look Away
album and appeared as a regular character, named Mia, on season five of the teenage television show
One Tree Hill
.
A few days later, Cohen was inducted into the American
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in recognition of his status among the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters".
. He was introduced by fellow musician
Lou Reed.
In December 2008 Cohen's "Hallelujah" was placed no. 1 and 2 in the U.K. Christmas singles chart, with 'X Factor' winner Alexandra Burke at No. 1 and Jeff Buckley at No. 2. A third release, by Cohen himself, was placed at No. 36, 24 years after its original release.
2009 concerts
On February 19, 2009, Cohen played his first American concert in fifteen years at the
Beacon Theatre in
New York City.
[21] He also performed at the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday, April 17, 2009, in front of one of the largest Outdoor Theatre crowds in the history of the festival. His performance of "Hallelujah" was widely regarded as one of the highlights of the festival.
In February 2009, in response to hearing about the devastation to the Yarra Valley region of Victoria in Australia, he donated $200,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal in support of those affected by the extensive
Black Saturday bushfires that razed the area just weeks after his performance at the Rochford Winery in the
A Day on the Green
concert.
[22] Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper reported: "Tour promoter Frontier Touring said $200,000 would be donated on behalf of Cohen, [fellow performer Paul] Kelly and Frontier to aid victims of the Victorian bushfires."
[23]
A scheduled concert in
Ramallah was cancelled after Palestinian human-rights activists objected to the fact that Cohen had also scheduled a concert in
Tel Aviv contrary to a proposed cultural boycott of Israel.
[24] Tickets for the Tel Aviv concert, Cohen's first performance in Israel since 1975, went on sale on August 1, 2009, and were sold out in less than 24 hours. It was announced that proceeds from the sale of the 47,000 tickets would go into a charitable fund in partnership with
Amnesty International and would be used by Israeli and Palestinian peace groups for projects providing health services to children and bringing together Israeli veterans and former Palestinian fighters and the families of those killed in the conflict.
[25] However on August 17, 2009, Amnesty International released a statement saying they were withdrawing from any involvement with the concert or its proceeds.
[26]
Themes
Recurring themes in Cohen's work include love and sex, religion, psychological depression, and music itself. He has also engaged with certain political themes, though sometimes ambiguously so. "Suzanne" mixes a wistful type of love song with a religious meditation, themes that are also mixed in "
Joan of Arc". "Famous Blue Raincoat" is from the point of view of a man whose marriage has been broken (in exactly what degree is ambiguous in the song) by his wife's infidelity with his close friend, and is written in the form of a letter to that friend, to whom he writes, "I guess that I miss you/ I guess I forgive you … Know your enemy is sleeping/ And his woman is free", while "
Everybody Knows" deals in part with social inequality ("...the poor stay poor/ And the rich get rich"), and the harsh reality of
AIDS: "… the naked man and woman/ Are just a shining artifact of the past".
"Sisters of Mercy", according to the
sleeve notes of his
Greatest Hits
evokes his encounter with two women named Barbara and Lorraine in a hotel room in
Edmonton, Canada. Claims that "
Chelsea Hotel #2" treats his affair with
Janis Joplin without sentimentality are countered by claims that the song reveals a much more complicated and mixed set of feelings than straightforward love. Cohen discusses the song in an interview filmed for the tribute-concert movie
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man. He confirms that the subject is indeed Janis with some evident embarrassment. "She wouldn't mind", he declares, "but my mother would be appalled". The title of "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On" speaks for itself.
Cohen comes from a
Jewish background, most obviously reflected in his song "
Story of Isaac", and also in "Who by Fire", whose words and melody echo the
Unetaneh Tokef, an 11th century liturgical poem recited on
Rosh Hashana and
Yom Kippur. Broader
Judeo-Christian themes are sounded throughout the album
Various Positions
: "Hallelujah", which has music as a secondary theme, begins by evoking the biblical king
David composing a song that "pleased the Lord", and continues with references to
Bathsheba and
Samson.
If it be Your Will
also has a strong air of religious resignation.
In his early career as a novelist,
Beautiful Losers
grappled with the mysticism of the
Catholic/
Iroquois Catherine Tekakwitha. Cohen has also been involved with
Buddhism at least since the 1970s and in 1996 he was ordained a Buddhist monk. However, he still considers himself also a Jew: "I'm not looking for a new religion. I'm quite happy with the old one, with Judaism."
[27]
He is described as an observant Jew in an article in the New York Times
[28] : "
Mr. Cohen is an observant Jew who keeps the Sabbath even while on tour and performed for Israeli troops during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. So how does he square that faith with his continued practice of Zen?
"
"
Allen Ginsberg asked me the same question many years ago,
" he said. "
Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity. So theologically there is no challenge to any Jewish belief [29].
"
Having suffered from
depression during much of his life (although less so with the onset of old age), Cohen has written much (especially in his early work) about depression and
suicide. The wife of the protagonist of
Beautiful Losers
commits a gory suicide; "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" is about a suicide; suicide is mentioned in the darkly comic "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong"; "Dress Rehearsal Rag" is about a last-minute decision not to kill oneself; a general atmosphere of depression pervades such songs as "Please Don't Pass Me By" and "Tonight Will Be Fine". As in the aforementioned "Hallelujah", music itself is the subject of many songs, including "Tower of Song", "A Singer Must Die", and "Jazz Police".
Social justice often shows up as a theme in his work, where he seems, especially in later albums, to expound a leftist politics, albeit with culturally conservative elements. In "Democracy", lamenting, "the wars against disorder/ … the sirens night and day/ … the fires of the homeless/ … the ashes of the gay", he concludes that the United States is actually not a democracy. He has made the observation (in "Tower of Song") that, "the rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor/ And there's a mighty judgment coming". In the title track of
The Future
he recasts this prophecy on a pacifist note: "I've seen the nations rise and fall/ …/ But love's the only engine of survival". In "Anthem", he promises that "the killers in high places [who] say their prayers out loud/ … [are] gonna hear from me".
Several Cohen songs speak of abortion, always either as something distasteful or even atrocious. In "The Future", he sings sarcastically "Destroy another fetus now/ We don't like children anyhow". In "Stories of the Street" Cohen speaks of "The age of lust is giving birth/ And both the parents ask/ The nurse to tell them fairy tales/ from both sides of the glass".
"Diamonds in the Mine" is often quoted as being a song about abortion with the lyric: "The only man of energy/ Yes the revolution's pride/ He trained a hundred women/ Just to kill an unborn child", always being used to substantiate this. However, extensive research suggests this song is actually about the demise of the hedonism of the 1960s. The "man of energy" referred to is Charles Manson and the "unborn child" is Sharon Tate's unborn baby when the Manson "Family" committed the atrocities in 1969.
In "The Land of Plenty", he characterizes the United States (if not the opulent West in general) of benightedness: "May the lights in The Land of Plenty/ Shine on the truth some day".
War is an enduring theme of Cohen's work which in his earlier songs, as indeed in his early life, he approached ambivalently. Challenged in 1974 over his serious demeanor in concerts and the military salutes with which he ended them, Cohen remarked: "I sing serious songs, and I'm serious onstage because I couldn't do it any other way. ... I don't consider myself a civilian. I consider myself a soldier, and that's the way soldiers salute".
[30] In "Field Commander Cohen" he imagines himself (perhaps metaphorically) as a soldier/spy socializing with
Fidel Castro in
Cuba—where he had actually lived at the height of US-Cuba tensions in 1961, allegedly sporting a
Che Guevara-style beard and military fatigues. This song was actually written immediately following Cohen's front-line stint with the
Israeli air force, the "fighting in Egypt" documented in an (again perhaps metaphorical) passage of "Night Comes On". In 1973, Cohen, who had traveled to
Jerusalem to sign up on the Israeli side in the
Yom Kippur War, had instead been assigned to a
USO-style entertainer tour of front-line tank emplacements in the
Sinai Desert, coming under fire. A poetic mention of then-General
Ariel Sharon delivered in the same mode as his Fidel Castro allusions, has given birth to the legend that Cohen and Sharon shared cognac together during Cohen's term in the Sinai.
Deeply moved by encounters with both Israeli and Arab soldiers, he left the country to write "Lover Lover Lover", which has often been interpreted as a personal renunciation of any part in such conflict, nonetheless ending with the hope his song will serve an unspecified listener as "a shield against the enemy". He would later remark, "'Lover, Lover, Lover' was born over there; The whole world has its eyes riveted on this tragic and complex conflict. Then again, I am faithful to certain ideas, inevitably. I hope that those of which I am in favour will gain."
[31] Asked which side he supported in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Cohen has responded: " I don't want to speak of wars or sides ... Personal process is one thing, it's blood, it's the identification one feels with their roots and their origins. The militarism I practice as a person and a writer is another thing. ... I don't wish to speak about war."
[32].
His recent politics continue a lifelong predilection for the underdog, the "beautiful loser". Whether recording "
The Partisan", a
French Resistance song by
Anna Marly and
Emmanuel d'Astier, or singing his own "The Old Revolution", written from the point of view of a defeated royalist, he has throughout his career through his music expressed his sympathy and support for the oppressed. Although Cohen's fascination with war is often as metaphor for more explicitly cultural and personal issues, as in
New Skin for the Old Ceremony
, by this measure his most "militant" album.
Cohen blends a good deal of pessimism about political/cultural issues with a great deal of humour and (especially in his later work) gentle acceptance. His wit contends with his stark analyses, as his songs are often verbally playful and even cheerful: In "Tower of Song", the famously raw-voiced Cohen sings
ironically that he was "… born with the gift/ Of a golden voice"; the generally dark "Is This What You Wanted?" nonetheless contains playful lines "You were
the whore and
the beast of
Babylon/ I was
Rin Tin Tin"; in concert, he often plays around with his lyrics (for example, "If you want a doctor/ I'll examine every inch of you" from "I'm Your Man" will become "If you want a Jewish doctor …"); and he will introduce one song by using a phrase from another song or poem (for example, introducing "Leaving Green Sleeves" by paraphrasing his own "Queen Victoria": "This is a song for those who are not nourished by modern love").
Cohen has also recorded such love songs as
Irving Berlin's "Always" or the more obscure soul number "Be for Real" (originally sung by
Marlena Shaw), chosen in part for their unlikely juxtaposition to his own work.
Lawsuits
On October 8, 2005, Cohen alleged that his longtime former manager, Kelley Lynch, misappropriated over US $5 million from Cohen's retirement fund along with the publishing rights to his songs,
[33] leaving Cohen with only $150,000. Cohen was sued in turn by other former business associates. These events placed him in the public spotlight, including a cover feature on him with the headline "Devastated!" in Canada's
Maclean's
magazine. In March 2006, Cohen won the
civil suit and was awarded US $9 million by a Los Angeles County superior court. Lynch, however, ignored the suit and did not respond to a
subpoena issued for her financial records.
[34] As a result it has been widely reported that Cohen may never be able to collect the cash.
[35] In 2007, U.S. District Lewis T. Babcock dismissed a claim by Cohen for more than US $4.5 million against Colorado investment firm Agile Group, and in 2008 he dismissed a defamation suit that Agile Group had filed against Cohen.
[36] Cohen has been under new management since April 2005.
Family life
In the 1960s, during his stay at Hydra, Cohen befriended the Scandinavian novelists
Axel Jensen and
Göran Tunström. He lived there with Axel's wife Marianne Jensen (now: Ihlen Stang) and their son Axel after they broke up. The song "
So Long, Marianne" is about her.
According to biographer and filmmaker
Harry Rasky, Cohen has been married once, to
Los Angeles artist Suzanne Elrod. Although the two did have an important relationship in the 1970s, Cohen himself has said that 'cowardice' and 'fear' have prevented him from ever actually marrying
[37] [38]. He had two children with Elrod: a son,
Adam, was born in 1972 and a daughter, Lorca, named after poet
Federico García Lorca, was born in 1974. Adam Cohen began his own career as a singer-songwriter in the mid-1990s and currently fronts a band called
Low Millions. Elrod took the cover photograph on Cohen's
Live Songs
album and is pictured on the cover of the
Death of a Ladies' Man
album.
Cohen and Elrod had split by 1979. Contrary to popular belief, "
Suzanne", one of his best-known songs, refers to Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of his friend, the Québécois sculptor
Armand Vaillancourt, rather than Elrod.
[39] In 1990, Cohen was romantically linked to actress
Rebecca De Mornay. He is now romantically involved with (and working with)
Anjani Thomas.
Titles and honours
- In 1968, Cohen refused a Governor General's Award (in category for English language poetry or drama) for Selected Poems 1956–1968
.
- In 1991, Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
- In 1993, Cohen won the Juno Award for Male Vocalist of the Year.
- In 1994, Cohen won another Juno Award this time for Songwriter of the Year.
- In 1996, he was ordained a Rinzai Buddhist monk.
- In 2002, Cohen was awarded a SNEP Award for more than 100,000 copies sold of Ten New Songs in France.
- In 2003, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour.
- In 2004, Beautiful Losers
was chosen for inclusion in Canada Reads 2005. It was selected and originally to be championed by singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright; however, tour commitments meant that Wainwright had to be replaced by singer Molly Johnson.
- In 2006, Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
- In 2007, Cohen received a Grammy for Album of the Year as a featured artist on Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters
. [40]
- In 2008, Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. [41]
- In June 2008 he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec
Discography
Studio albums
Title
| Release date
|
Songs of Leonard Cohen
| December 27 1967
|
Songs from a Room
| April 1969
|
Songs of Love and Hate
| March 1971
|
New Skin for the Old Ceremony
| August 1974
|
Death of a Ladies' Man
| November 1977
|
Recent Songs
| September 1979
|
Various Positions
| December 1984
|
I'm Your Man
| February 1988
|
The Future
| November 24 1992
|
Ten New Songs
| October 9 2001
|
Dear Heather
| October 26 2004
|
Tribute albums
Title
| Release date
|
I'm Your Fan
| 1991
|
Tower of Song
| 1995
|
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
| 2006
|
Many other cover albums have been recorded by many artists
[42].
Books
- Let Us Compare Mythologies
(poetry) 1956
- The Spice-Box of Earth
(poetry) 1961
- The Favourite Game
(novel) 1963
- Flowers for Hitler
(poetry) 1964
- Beautiful Losers
(novel) 1966
- Parasites of Heaven
(poetry) 1966
- Selected Poems 1956–1968
(poetry) 1968
- The Energy of Slaves
(poetry) 1972
- Death of a Lady's Man
(poetry and prose) 1978
- Book of Mercy
(prose, poetry, psalms) 1984
- Stranger Music
(selected poems and songs) 1993
- Book of Longing
(poetry, prose, drawings) 2006
Film
- Cohen was the subject of the 1965 documentary Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen
, directed by Donald Brittain and Don Owen and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. This film, which pre-dates Cohen's career as a songwriter, explores his career as a well-known Canadian poet. [43]
- Cohen's music also appeared the following year in the 1966 NFB animated short Angel
.
- Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
was released in the United States on June 21, 2006. It prominently features a 2005 tribute concert to Cohen, "Came So Far For Beauty", held at the Sydney Opera House; the concert was produced by Hal Willner. The film, directed by Lian Lunson, has appearances by Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and a performance of "Tower of Song" by Cohen and U2. The film also features Cohen recalling significant parts of his life and career.
- The Favourite Game (Le Jeu de l'ange)
, based on his novel of the same title, was released in Canada in 2003.
- In 1985, Cohen co-wrote and co-composed Night Magic
(starring Carole Laure) with fellow Quebecer, Lewis Furey.
- Cohen narrated a documentary called The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life
.
- Cohen makes a cameo appearance performing "The Stranger Song" in the Canadian film The Ernie Game
(1968), which is based on the stories of Bernard Cole Spencer.
- Cohen is referenced in the Canadian film Looking for Leonard
.
- Three of Cohen's songs from his album The Future ("Waiting for the Miracle", "Anthem", and "The Future") are used in Oliver Stone's 1994 film Natural Born Killers. Songs from this album have also appeared in the films Wonder Boys
(2000), starring Michael Douglas and The Life of David Gale (2003), starring Kevin Spacey.
- Cohen is the subject of a two-part documentary, Leonard Cohen: Under Review 1934-1977
(2007) and Leonard Cohen: Under Review 1978-2006
(2008), available separately on DVD.
- Cohen appeared in the role of villain Francois Zolan in the "French Twist" episode of the American television series Miami Vice
(season 2, episode 17), originally broadcast on February 21, 1986.
- The Songs Of Leonard Cohen
, a 1980 documentary by Harry Rasky, featuring Irving Layton, includes highlights from Cohen's 1979 tour and tracks from the LP Recent Songs
.
- I Am A Hotel
, a Canadian-produced 25-minute song cycle/video starring Cohen and dancer Robert Desrosiers
- First We Take Manhattan
and Hallelujah
were used in the 2009 film Watchmen
.
See also
- Music of Canada
- List of Quebec musicians
- Music of Quebec
- Culture of Quebec
- List of people with depression
References
- allmusic ((( Leonard Cohen > Biography )))
- Richard Rees Jones, "Leonard Cohen, Minnewaterpark, Bruges, Belgium", 10 July 2008, "Cohen’s music is a highly appealing form of central European folk, with clouds of acoustic and percussive invention augmented by achingly perfect vocal harmonies and touches of countryish electric and pedal steel guitar" Link
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame press release, "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Announces its Inductees for 2008", December 13, 2007. http://www.rockhall.com/pressroom/2008-inductee-announcement
- The Midday Show With Ray Martin
- Williams, P. (n.d.) Leonard Cohen: The Romantic in a Ragpicker's Trade
- Adria, Marco, "Chapter and Verse: Leonard Cohen", ''Music of Our Times: Eight Canadian Singer-Songwriters'' (Toronto: Lorimer, 1990), p. 28.
- Warhol, Andy: Popism. Orlando: Harcourt Press, 1980.
- Nadel, Ira B. Various Positions: a life of Leonard Cohen. New York: Random House,1996. Print
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/arts/music/25cohe.html
- de Lisle, T. (2004)Hallelujah: 70 things about Leonard Cohen at 70
- Fitzgerald, J. (2001) Beautiful loser, beautiful comeback. ''The National Post,'' 24 March 2001.
- (n.d.) "blue alert 2006" - Reviews.
- (2006) "Cohen returns to limelight with bestselling book" CBC Online. Sunday, May 14, 2006.
- leonardcohenforum.com • View topic - Leonard Cohen: TOUR 2008
- 2008 Tour schedule
- Leonard Cohen reveals details of world tour | News | NME.COM
- Glastonbury headliners revealed
- BBC - Glastonbury 2008 - Leonard Cohen
- Glastonbury says 'Hallelujah' to Leonard Cohen
- The Idol Countdown: Five Essential Moments From Last Night's "American Idol". ''Rolling Stone''. March 5, 2008. Retrieved on March 7, 2008.
- Leonard Cohen Dazzles At New York Tour Warm-Up
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/10/leonard-cohen-australian-bushfire-donation
- http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25037004-5012974,00.html
- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443798463&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.
- Leonard Cohen’s Israel concert sells out in day
- 17/Aug/2009 - Amnesty International and the Leonard Cohen Fund for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace
- "Who held a gun to Leonard Cohen's head?" ''The Guardian''. September 17, 2004.
- See Larry Rohter. ''On the Road, for Reasons Practical and Spiritual''. The New York Times, February 25, 2009.
- See Larry Rohter. ''On the Road, for Reasons Practical and Spiritual''. The New York Times, February 25, 2009.For an extended discussion of the Jewish mystical and Buddhist motifs in Cohen's songs and poems, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “New Jerusalem Glowing: Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen in a Kabbalistic Key,” ''Kabbalah: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts'' 15 (2006): 103-152.
- http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/spain1.htm
- (2001) "Cohen: ''Lover Lover Lover est né là-bas... Le monde entier a les yeux rivés sur ce conflit tragique et complexe. Alors, je suis fidèle à certaines idées, forcément. J'espère que ceux dont je suis partisan vont gagner..''" ''L'Express, France, 04 octobre 2001''
- (1974)[1] ''1974 in Barcelona, Spain. Published in 'Leonard Cohen' by Alberto Manzano, published in 1978.''
- Glaister, D. (2005)"Cohen stays calm as $5m pension disappears", ''The Guardian.'' , 2005.
- (2006) "Leonard Cohen awarded $9 million in civil suit", CTV.ca. Mar. 2 2006
- (2006)"Leonard Cohen 'unlikely' to recover stolen millions: Funds taken by ex-manager going to be hard to recover" NME. March 3, 2006.
- Defamation Suit Against Songwriter Cohen Is Dropped (Update2)
- http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/sl2001.htm
- http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1305765,00.html
- (2006) "And she feeds you tea and oranges..." The Story of Suzanne CBC, the National. February 3, 2006.
- GRAMMY.com
- Indictees for 2008
- http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/covers.html
- ''Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen'', NFB.ca