Requiem for Leonard

Then clenching your fist, for the ones like us,

Who are oppressed by figures of beauty,

You fixed yourself, and said, "Well never mind,

We are ugly but we have the music."

-Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel #2

I was able to jump on here and mourn for David Bowie and Prince within a few hours of learning of their passing.  Both were important to me, I felt like I connected with their art at different places in my life and so I mourned for their absence.  But now Leonard Cohen has gone as well, the latest casualty of a year that I am not finding particularly enjoyable.  I couldn't really deal with Leonard's passing as quickly, I had to sort of sit with it for a while, like the tradition of Leonard's own Hebrew people, I needed to sit quietly in grief before I could come up with what to say.

I like a lot of music, different kinds, different eras, different styles, but there are three songwriters, who are transcendent in my musical pantheon (pretty much in this order): Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.  If you know who they are you are probably aware that none of them are famous for their amazing vocal talents, it is their words that put them on a different level, above and beyond even dear artists like Bowie, Cobain, Cornell, Vedder, the Stones, the Beatles and such like.  These men are poets and miners of the deep veins of human experience.  Dylan has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, despite not being a traditional author, because his songs are cultural milestones.  Dylan is far more visible and his songs trace the arc of history, personal, political and human.  But Leonard Cohen does something a little different, a bit less accessible to the masses, and frankly sublime.

Discovering Leonard Cohen is like learning to appreciate coffee or whiskey, he's a grown up taste.  If Bowie is a pair of shiny dance club shoes, and Prince is a pair of high heeled boots, Cohen is a pair of well worn but classy brogans that you could wear with jeans, or with a suit, that you could wear to church or for a walk in the woods.  His lyrics can run deep, even when they seem fairly simple on the surface, and his songs have the ability to hit you on a time delay.  I have lyrics of his songs floating through my head pretty much all the time.  His voice went from deep and smooth as a young man to gravelly and rumbling as an old man, but the content of his words was always the thing.

As a person Cohen seemed honest and forthright, where Dylan can be cagey and even a bit resentful of people probing him about his work, Leonard would answer questions about the depth of his soul fairly readily. It usually seemed like he was quite willing to go deeper than the questioner really intended.  I remember this example from somewhere, and I can't dig up an exact source, so I'm going to take a stab at remembering.  He was asked about the song quoted above: Chelsea Hotel #2, which had long been rumored to be about his relationship with Janice Joplin, and the aftermath of her death.  He reluctantly confirmed that it was, but the interviewer sensed his reticence, and asked him if he thought she would be embarrassed or resent him for writing that song. "No," he said, "she wouldn't mind at all, I'm thinking about how disappointed my Mother would be with me, Gentlemen don't talk about such things."

That was Leonard to the core, a sensitive and gentle man, self deprecating and aware of how odd it was for people to spread their souls out for all to see, let alone have other people admire you for doing it.  I would call him a prophet as well as a poet.  In the end of it all, his words speak more beautifully than I could, so here is a collection of some of my favorite Leonard Cohen snippets, I encourage you to find him for yourself if you don't already know.

There is a crack, a crack, in everything, that's how the light gets in.

Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.

You who build these altars now, to sacrifice these children, you must not do it any more.

A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tested, by an angel or a god.

I lift my glass to the awful truth, which you can't reveal to the ears of youth,

except to say it isn't worth a dime.

Hold us near, and bind us tight, all your children here, in their rags of light,

In our rags of light, all dressed to kill, and end this night,

If it be your will.

Everybody knows the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.

You got away, didn't you babe, you just turned your back on the crowd, 

You got away, I never once heard you say, "I need you, I don't need you."

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 it be your will, that I speak no more,

That my voice be still, as it was before,

I will speak no more, I shall abide until

I am spoken for, if it be your will.

From this broken hill, all your praises they shall ring,

If it be your will, to let me sing.

Shalom Eliezer