Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen CC GOQ |
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![]() Cohen in 1988
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Background information | |
Birth name | Leonard Norman Cohen |
Born | Westmount, Quebec, Canada |
September 21, 1934
Died | November 7, 2016 (aged 82) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
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Instruments |
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Years active | 1956–2016 |
Labels | Columbia |
Associated acts | |
Website | leonardcohen |
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships.[2] Cohen was inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.
Cohen perused a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His 1977 record Death of a Ladies' Man was co-written and produced by Phil Spector, which was a move away from Cohen's previous minimalist sound. In 1979 Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz and Oriental and Mediterranean influences. "Hallelujah" was first released on Cohen's studio album Various Positions in 1984. I'm Your Man in 1988 marked Cohen's turn to synthesized productions and remains his most popular album. In 1992 Cohen released its follow-up, The Future, which had dark lyrics and references to political and social unrest.
Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of Ten New Songs, which was a major hit in Canada and Europe. His eleventh album, Dear Heather, followed in 2004. After a successful string of tours between 2008 and 2010, Cohen released three albums in the final four years of his life: Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems (2014) and You Want It Darker (2016), the last of which was released three weeks before his death.
Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Poetry and novels
- 3 Recording career
- 4 Cultural impact and themes
- 5 Personal life
- 6 Death
- 7 Awards, titles and honours
- 8 Discography
- 9 Bibliography
- 10 See also
- 11 Notes
- 12 References
- 13 Further reading
- 14 External links
Early life
Cohen was born on September 21, 1934 in Westmount, Quebec, an English-speaking area of Montreal, into a middle-class Jewish family. His mother, Marsha (Masha) Klonitsky,[3] was the daughter of a Talmudic writer, Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry.[4][5] His paternal grandfather, whose family had emigrated from Poland, was Lyon Cohen, founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, Nathan Cohen, who owned a substantial clothing store, died when Cohen was nine years old.
The family observed Orthodox Judaism, and were members of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim; Cohen retained connections to it all his life.[6] On the topic of being a Kohen, Cohen has said that "I had a very Messianic childhood." He told Richard Goldstein in 1967, "I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest."[7]
Cohen attended Roslyn Elementary School and Herzliah High School, where his literary mentor Irving Layton was a teacher,[8] and, from 1948, Westmount High School, where he was involved with the student council and studied music and poetry.[9] He became especially interested in the poetry of Federico García Lorca.[9] As a teenager, he learned to play the guitar and formed a country–folk group called the Buckskin Boys. Although he initially played a regular acoustic guitar, he soon switched to playing a classical guitar after meeting a young Spanish flamenco guitar player who taught him "a few chords and some flamenco."[9] He said that much of his love of music came from his mother, who he said had a lovely voice:
She was Russian and sang songs around the house. And I know that those changes, those melodies, touched me very much. She would sing with us when I took my guitar to a restaurant with some friends; my mother would come, and we'd often sing all night.[10]
Cohen frequented Saint Laurent Boulevard, where he went for fun, and ate at places such as the Main Deli Steak House.[11][12] According to journalist David Sax, the Main Deli was where Cohen and one of his cousins would go to "watch the gangsters, pimps, and wrestlers dance around the night."[13] Cohen also enjoyed visiting the previously raucous bars of Old Montreal as well as Saint Joseph's Oratory, which had the closest restaurant near Westmount where he and his friend Mort Rosengarten could go for coffee and a smoke.[12] After moving out of Westmount, Cohen purchased a place in the previously working-class neighbourhood of Montreal's Little Portugal on Saint-Laurent Boulevard where he read his poetry at various surrounding clubs. It is also during his time there in the small neighbourhood that he wrote the lyrics to what would become some of his most famous songs.[12]
Poetry and novels
For six decades, Leonard Cohen revealed his soul to the world through poetry and song—his deep and timeless humanity touching our very core. Simply brilliant. His music and words will resonate forever.
In 1951 Cohen enrolled at McGill University, where he became president of the McGill Debating Union and won the Chester MacNaghten Literary Competition for the poems "Sparrows" and "Thoughts of a Landsman."[15] Cohen published his first poems in March 1954 in the magazine CIV/n. The issue also included poems by Cohen's poet–professors (who were also on the editorial board), Irving Layton and Louis Dudek.[15] Cohen graduated from McGill the following year with a B.A. degree.[9] His literary influences during this time included William Butler Yeats, Irving Layton (who taught political science at McGill and became both Cohen's mentor and friend),[9] Walt Whitman, Federico García Lorca, and Henry Miller.[16] His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[9] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[9]
After completing his undergraduate degree, Cohen spent a term in McGill's law school and then a year (1956–57) at the School of General Studies at Columbia University. Cohen described his graduate school experience as "passion without flesh, love without climax."[17] Consequently, Cohen left New York and returned to Montreal in 1957, working various odd jobs and focusing on the writing of fiction and poetry, including the poems for his next book, The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), which was the first book that Cohen published through the Canadian publishing company McClelland & Stewart. His father's will provided him with a modest trust income, sufficient to allow him to pursue his literary ambitions for the time, and The Spice-Box of Earth was successful in helping to expand the audience for Cohen's poetry, helping him reach out to the poetry scene in Canada, outside the confines of McGill University. The book also helped Cohen gain critical recognition as an important new voice in Canadian poetry. One of Cohen's biographers, Ira Nadel, stated that "reaction to the finished book was enthusiastic and admiring.... The critic Robert Weaver found it powerful and declared that Cohen was 'probably the best young poet in English Canada right now.'"[9]
Cohen continued to write poetry and fiction throughout much of the 1960s and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf. While living and writing on Hydra, Cohen published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). His novel The Favourite Game was an autobiographical bildungsroman about a young man who discovers his identity through writing. Beautiful Losers received a good deal of attention from the Canadian press and stirred up controversy because of a number of sexually graphic passages.[9] In 1966 Cohen also published Parasites of Heaven, a book of poems. Both Beautiful Losers and Parasites of Heaven received mixed reviews and sold few copies.[9]
in 1966, CBC TV producer Andrew Simon produced a local Montreal current affairs program, "Seven on Six", and offered Cohen a position as host. "I decided I'm going to be a songwriter. I want to write songs," Simon recalled Cohen telling him.[18]
Subsequently, Cohen published less, with major gaps, concentrating more on recording songs. In 1978 he published his first book of poetry in many years, Death of a Lady's Man (not to be confused with the album he released the previous year with the similar title, Death of a Ladies' Man). It was not until 1984 that Cohen published his next book of poems, Book of Mercy, which won him the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Poetry. The book contains 50 prose-poems, influenced by the Hebrew Bible and Zen writings. Cohen himself referred to the pieces as "prayers".[19] In 1993 Cohen published Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, and in 2006, after 10 years of delays, additions, and rewritings, Book of Longing. The Book of Longing is dedicated to the poet Irving Layton. Also, during the late 1990s and 2000s, many of Cohen's new poems and lyrics were first published on the fan website The Leonard Cohen Files, including the original version of the poem "A Thousand Kisses Deep" (which Cohen later adapted for a song).[20][21]
Cohen's writing process, as he told an interviewer in 1998, was "like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it."[22]
In 2011 Cohen was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for literature.[23]
Recording career
1960s and 1970s
In 1967, disappointed with his lack of financial success as a writer, Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer–songwriter. During the 1960s, 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.[24] His song "Suzanne" became a hit for Judy Collins (who subsequently covered a number of Cohen's other songs, as well), and was for many years his most covered song. Collins recalls that when she first met him, he said he couldn't sing or play the guitar, nor did he think "Suzanne" was even a song:
And then he played me "Suzanne... I said, "Leonard, you must come with me to this big fundraiser I'm doing"...Jimi Hendrix was on it. He'd never sung [in front of a large audience] before then. He got out on stage and started singing. Everybody was going crazy—they loved it. And he stopped about halfway through and walked off the stage. Everybody went nuts...They demanded that he come back. And I demanded; I said, "I'll go out with you." So we went out, and we sang it. And of course, that was the beginning.[25]
People think Leonard is dark, but actually his sense of humor and his edge on the world is extremely light.
She first introduced him to television audiences during one of her shows in 1976, where they performed duets of his songs.[27][28] Still new to bringing his poetry to music, he once forgot the words to "Suzanne" while singing to a different audience.[29] Collins told Bill Moyers, during a television interview, that she felt Cohen's Jewish background was an important influence on his words and music.[26]
In recent years, other singers such as Joan Baez have sung it during their tours.[30] Cohen has stated that he was duped into giving up the rights for the song, but was glad it happened, as it would be wrong to write a song that was so well-loved and to get rich for it also. After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the attention of Columbia Records representative John H. Hammond, who signed Cohen to a record deal.[31] Cohen's first album was Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967). He appeared on BBC TV in 1968 where he sang a duet from the album with Julie Felix.[32][a]
The album became a cult favorite in the U.S., as well as in the UK, where it spent over a year on the album charts.[33] Several of the songs on that first album were covered by other popular folk artists, including James Taylor[34] and Judy Collins.[35] Cohen followed up that first album with Songs from a Room (1969, featuring the often-recorded "Bird on the Wire") and Songs of Love and Hate (1971). In 1971, film director Robert Altman featured the songs "The Stranger Song," "Winter Lady," and "Sisters of Mercy", from Songs of Leonard Cohen, in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.[36]
In 1970 Cohen toured for the first time, in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival.[37] In 1972 he toured again in Europe and Israel. [b] When his performance in Israel didn't seem to be going well, however, he walked off the stage, went to his dressing room, and took some LSD. He then heard the audience clamoring for his reappearance by singing to him in Hebrew, and under the influence of the psychedelic, he returned to finish the show.[39][40] Additionally, in 1973 he played a special performance for a group of IDF soldiers in the outposts of Sinai during the Yom Kippur War.[41]
In 1973 Columbia Records released "Leonard Cohen: Live Songs". Then beginning around 1974, Cohen's collaboration with pianist and arranger John Lissauer created a live sound praised by the critics. They toured together in 1974 in Europe and in U.S. and Canada in late 1974 and early 1975, in support of Cohen's record New Skin for the Old Ceremony. In late 1975 Cohen and Lissauer performed a short series of shows in the U.S. and Canada with a new band, in support of Cohen's Best Of release. The tour included new songs from an album in progress, co-written by Cohen and Lissauer and entitled Songs for Rebecca. None of the recordings from these live tours with Lissauer were ever officially released, and the album was abandoned in 1976.
In 1976 Cohen, embarked on a new major European tour with a new band and changes in his sound and arrangements, again, in support of his The Best of Leonard Cohen release (in Europe retitled as Greatest Hits). Laura Branigan was one of his backup singers during the tour.[42] From April to July, Cohen gave 55 shows, including his first appearance at the famous Montreux Jazz Festival.
After the European tour of 1976, Cohen again attempted a new change in his style and arrangements; his new 1977 record, Death of a Ladies' Man (one year later, in 1978, Cohen also released a volume of poetry with the coyly revised title, Death of a Lady's Man), was co-written and produced by Phil Spector.[43][c]
Leonard acknowledges that the whole act of living contains immense amounts of sorrow and hopelessness and despair; and also passion, high hopes, deep love, and eternal love.
In 1979 Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs,[47] which blended his acoustic style with jazz and Oriental and Mediterranean influences. Beginning with this record, Cohen began to co-produce his albums. Produced by Cohen and Henry Lewy (Joni Mitchell's sound engineer), Recent Songs included performances by Passenger,[48] an Austin-based jazz–fusion band that met Cohen through Mitchell. The band helped Cohen create a new sound by featuring instruments like the oud, the Gypsy violin, and the mandolin. The album was supported by Cohen's major tour with the new band, and Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson on the backing vocals, in Europe in late 1979, and again in Australia, Israel, and Europe in 1980. In 2000, Columbia released an album of live recordings of songs from the 1979 tour, entitled Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979.[49]
During the 1970s, Cohen toured twice with Jennifer Warnes as a backup singer (1972 and 1979). Warnes would become a fixture on Cohen's future albums, receiving full co-vocals credit on Cohen's 1985 album Various Positions (although the record was released under Cohen's name, the inside credits say "Vocals by Leonard Cohen and Jennifer Warnes"). In 1987 she recorded an album of Cohen songs, Famous Blue Raincoat.[50] Cohen said that she sang backup for his 1980 tour, even though her career at the time was in much better shape than his. "So this is a real friend," he said. "Someone who in the face of great derision, has always supported me."[46]
1980s
In the early 1980s, Cohen co-wrote the rock musical film Night Magic with Lewis Furey, starring Carole Laure and Nick Mancuso; the LP Dance Me to the End of Love was released in 1985.[d] Cohen supported the release of the album with his biggest tour to date, in Europe and Australia, and with his first tour in Canada and the United States since 1975.[e] The band performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the Roskilde Festival.
They also gave a series of highly emotional and politically controversial concerts in Poland, which was under martial law and performed the song "The Partisan," regarded as the hymn of the Polish Solidarity movement.[51][f]
In 1987 Jennifer Warnes's tribute album Famous Blue Raincoat helped restore Cohen's career in the U.S. The following year he released I'm Your Man.[g] Cohen supported the record with series of television interviews and an extensive tour of Europe, Canada, and the U.S. Many shows were broadcast on European and U.S. television and radio stations, while Cohen performed for the first time in his career on PBS's Austin City Limits show.[53][54][h]
"Hallelujah"
"Hallelujah" was first released on Cohen's studio album Various Positions in 1984, and he sang it during his Europe tour in 1985.[55][56][57] The song had limited initial success but found greater popularity through a 1991 cover by John Cale, which formed the basis for a later cover by Jeff Buckley. "Hallelujah" has been performed by almost 200 artists in various languages.[58][i] The song is the subject of the book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of 'Hallelujah' (2012) by Alan Light.
In a New York Times review Janet Maslin praised the book and the song, noting that "Cohen spent years struggling with his song 'Hallelujah'", which eventually became one of the most "oft-performed songs in American musical history."[60]
1990s
The use of the album track "Everybody Knows" from I'm Your Man and "If It Be Your Will" in the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume helped expose Cohen's music to a younger audience. He first introduced the song during his world tour in 1988.[61] The song "Everybody Knows" also featured prominently in fellow Canadian 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, which also promoted Cohen's work to a new generation of US listeners.
As with I'm Your Man, the lyrics on the The Future were dark, and made references to political and social unrest. The title track is reportedly a response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Cohen promoted the album with two music videos, for "Closing Time" and "The Future", and supported the release with the major tour through Europe, United States and Canada, with the same band as in his 1988 tour, including a second appearance on PBS's Austin City Limits. Some of the Scandinavian shows were broadcast live on the radio. The selection of performances, mostly recorded on the Canadian leg of the tour, was released on 1994 Cohen Live album.
In 1993, Cohen also published his book of selected poems and songs, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, on which he had worked since 1989. It includes a number of new poems from the late 1980s and early 1990s and major revision of his 1978 book Death of a Lady's Man.[62]
In 1994, Cohen retreated to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, beginning what became five years of seclusion at the center.[50] 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.
In 1997, Cohen oversaw the selection and release of More Best of Leonard Cohen album, which included a previously unreleased track, "Never Any Good", and an experimental piece "The Great Event". The first was left over from Cohen's unfinished mid-1990s album, which was announced to include songs like "In My Secret Life" (already recited as song-in-progress in 1988) and "A Thousand Kisses Deep",[63] both later re-worked with Sharon Robinson for the 2001 album Ten New Songs.[17] The album won him four Canadian Juno Awards in 2002: Best Artist, Best Songwriter, Best Pop Album, and Best Video ("In My Secret Life").[17] And the following year he was given Canada's highest civilian honor, the Companion of the Order of Canada.[17]
Although around 2000 there was a public impression that Cohen would not resume recording or publishing; he returned to Los Angeles in May 1999. He began to contribute regularly to The Leonard Cohen Files fan website, emailing new poems and drawings from Book of Longing and early versions of new songs, like "A Thousand Kisses Deep" in September 1998[64] and Anjani Thomas's story sent on May 6, 1999, the day they were recording "Villanelle for our Time"[65] (released on 2004's Dear Heather album). The section of The Leonard Cohen Files with Cohen's online writings has been titled "The Blackening Pages".[21]
2000s
Post-monastery records
After two years of production, Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of Ten New Songs, featuring a heavy influence from producer and co-composer Sharon Robinson. The album, recorded at Cohen's and Robinson's home studios – Still Life Studios,[66] includes the song "Alexandra Leaving", a transformation of the poem "The God Abandons Antony", by the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy. The album was a major hit for Cohen in Canada and Europe, and he supported it with the hit single "In My Secret Life" and accompanying video shot by Floria Sigismondi.
In October 2004, Cohen released Dear Heather, largely a musical collaboration with jazz chanteuse (and current romantic partner) Anjani Thomas, although Sharon Robinson returned 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 attributed to Zen Buddhism. 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, an album of songs co-written by Anjani and Cohen, was released in 2006 to positive reviews. 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."[67][j]
Before embarking on his 2008–2010 world tour, and without finishing the new album which had been in work since 2006, Cohen contributed a few tracks to other artists' albums – a new version of his own "Tower of Song" was performed by him, Anjani Thomas and U2 in the 2006 tribute film Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man[69] (the video and track were included on the film's soundtrack and released as the B-side of U2's single "Window in the Skies", reaching No 1 in the Canadian Singles Chart). In 2007 he recited "The Sound of Silence" on album Tribute to Paul Simon: Take Me to the Mardi Gras and "The Jungle Line" by Joni Mitchell, accompanied by Herbie Hancock on piano, on Hancock's Grammy-winning album River: The Joni Letters,[70] while in 2008, he recited the poem "Since You've Asked" on the album Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins.[71][citation needed]
Lawsuits and financial troubles
Sylvie Simmons explains in her 2012 biography on Cohen that Kelley Lynch, Cohen's longtime manager, "took care of Leonard's business affairs … [and was] not simply his manager but a close friend, almost part of the family."[72] Simmons notes that in late 2004, Cohen's daughter Lorca began to suspect Lynch of financial impropriety, and when Cohen checked his bank accounts, he noticed that he had unknowingly paid a credit card bill of Lynch's for $75,000 and also found that most of the money in his accounts was gone (including money from his retirement accounts and charitable trust funds). Cohen discovered that this had begun as early as 1996 when Lynch started selling Cohen's music publishing rights despite the fact that Cohen had no financial incentive to do so at the time.[72]
In October 2005, Cohen sued Lynch, alleging that she had misappropriated over US $5 million from Cohen's retirement fund leaving only $150,000.[73][74] Cohen was sued in turn by other former business associates.[73] These events placed him in the public spotlight, including a cover feature on him with the headline "Devastated!" in Canada's Maclean's magazine.[74] In March 2006, Cohen won a civil suit and was awarded US$9 million by a Los Angeles County superior court. Lynch ignored the suit and did not respond to a subpoena issued for her financial records.[75] As a result, it was widely reported that Cohen might never be able to collect the awarded amount.[76][k]
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 1,500 orders placed online. All 1,500 sold within hours. The book quickly topped bestseller lists in Canada. On May 13, 2006, Cohen made his first public appearance in thirteen years, at an in-store event at a bookstore in Toronto. Approximately 3,000 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.[80]
In 2006, Philip Glass composed music to Cohen's 2006 book of poetry Book of Longing. Following the series of live performances which included Glass on keyboards, Cohen's recorded spoken text, four voices (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass-baritone), and other instruments, and as well the screenings of Cohen's artworks and drawings, Glass' label Orange Mountain Music released a double CD with the recording of the work, entitled Book of Longing. A Song Cycle based on the Poetry and Artwork of Leonard Cohen.[81]
2008–10 World Tour
2008 tour
The tour, Cohen's first in 15 years, began May 11 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and was extended until late 2010. The schedule of the first leg in mid-2008 encompassed Canada and Europe, including performances at The Big Chill,[82] the Montreal Jazz Festival, and on the Pyramid Stage at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival on June 29, 2008.[83] His performance at Glastonbury was hailed by many as the highlight of the festival,[84] and his performance of "Hallelujah" as the sun went down received a rapturous reception and a lengthy ovation from a packed Pyramid Stage field.[85] He also played two shows in London's O2 Arena, while in Dublin he was the first performer to play an open-air concert at IMMA (Royal Hospital Kilmainham) ground, performing there on June 13, 14 and 15, 2008. In 2009, the performances were awarded Ireland's Meteor Music Award as the best international performance of the year.
In September, October and November 2008, Cohen toured Europe, including stops in Austria, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Italy, Germany, France and Scandinavia.
Live in London
In March 2009, Cohen released Live in London, recorded in July 2008 at London's O2 Arena and released on DVD and as a two-CD set. The album contains 25 songs and is more than two-and-a-half hours long. It was the first official DVD in Cohen's recording career.[86]
2009 tour
The third leg of Cohen's World Tour 2008–2009 encompassed New Zealand and Australia from January 20 to February 10, 2009. In January 2009, The Pacific Tour first came to New Zealand, where the audience of 12,000 responded with five standing ovations.[l]
On February 19, 2009, Cohen played his first American concert in fifteen years at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.[89] The show, showcased as the special performance for fans, Leonard Cohen Forum members and press, was the only show in the whole three-year tour which was broadcast on the radio (NPR) and available as the free podcast.
The North American Tour of 2009 opened on April 1 and included the performance 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, thus repeating the major success of the 2008 Glastonbury appearance.
In July 2009, Cohen started his marathon European tour, his third in two years. The itinerary mostly included sport arenas and open air Summer festivals in Germany, UK, France, Spain, Ireland (the show at O2 in Dublin won him the second Meteor Music Award in a row), but also performances in Serbia in the Belgrade Arena, in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, and again in Romania.
On September 18, 2009, on the stage at a concert in Valencia, Spain, Cohen suddenly fainted halfway through performing his song "Bird on the Wire", the fourth in the two-act set list; Cohen was brought down backstage by his band members and then admitted to local hospital, while the concert was suspended.[90] It was reported that Cohen had stomach problems, and possibly food poisoning.[91] Three days later, on September 21, his 75th birthday, he performed in Barcelona. The show, last in Europe in 2009 and rumoured to be the last European concert ever, attracted many international fans, who lighted the green candles honouring Cohen's birthday, leading Cohen to give a special speech of thanks for the fans and the Leonard Cohen Forum.
The last concert of this leg was held in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 24, at Ramat Gan Stadium. The event was surrounded by public discussion due to a cultural boycott of Israel proposed by a number of musicians.[92] Nevertheless, tickets for the Tel Aviv concert, Cohen's first performance in Israel since 1980, sold out in less than 24 hours.[93] It was announced that the 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.[94][m]
The sixth leg of the 2008–2009 world tour went again to U.S., with fifteen shows. The 2009 world tour earned a reported $9.5 million, putting Cohen at number 39 on Billboard magazine's list of the year's top musical "money makers".[97]
Live releases
On September 14, 2010, Sony Music released a live CD/DVD album, Songs from the Road, showcasing Cohen's 2008 and 2009 live performances. The previous year, Cohen's performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Music Festival was released as a CD/DVD combo.
2010 tour
Cohen's 2008–2009 world tour was prolonged into 2010. Originally scheduled to start in March, it began in September due to Cohen's back injury.[98] Officially billed as the "World Tour 2010", the tour started on July 25, 2010 in Arena Zagreb, Croatia.[n] The third leg of the 2010 tour started on October 28 in New Zealand and continued in Australia.
2010s
In 2011, Cohen's poetical output was represented in Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, in a selection Poems and Songs edited by Robert Faggen. The collection included a selection from all Cohen's books, based on his 1993 books of selected works, Stranger Music, and as well from Book of Longing, with addition of six new song lyrics. Nevertheless, three of those songs, "A Street", recited in 2006, "Feels So Good", performed live in 2009 and 2010, and "Born in Chains", performed live in 2010, were not released on Cohen's 2012 album Old Ideas, with him being unhappy with the versions of the songs in the last moment; the song "Lullaby", as presented in the book and performed live in 2009, was completely re-recorded for the album, presenting new lyrics on the same melody.[citation needed]
A new biography, I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, written by Sylvie Simmons, was published in October 2012. The book is the second major biography of Cohen (Ira Nadel's 1997 biography Various Positions was the first).[101]
Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen's twelfth studio album, Old Ideas, was released worldwide on January 31, 2012, and it soon became the highest charting album of his entire career, reaching #1 positions in Canada, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, New Zealand, and top ten positions in United States, Australia, France, Portugal, UK, Scotland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland, competing for number one position with Lana Del Rey's debut album Born to Die, released the same day.[102]
The lyrics for the song "Going Home" were published as a poem in The New Yorker magazine in January 2012, prior to the record's release.[103] The entire album has been streamed online by NPR on January 22[104] and on January 23 by The Guardian.[105]
The album received uniformly positive reviews from Rolling Stone,[106] the Chicago Tribune,[107] and The Guardian.[108] At a record release party for the album in January 2012, Cohen spoke with The New York Times reporter Jon Pareles who states that "mortality was very much on his mind and in his songs [on this album]." Pareles goes to characterize the album as "an autumnal album, musing on memories and final reckonings, but it also has a gleam in its eye. It grapples once again with topics Mr. Cohen has pondered throughout his career: love, desire, faith, betrayal, redemption. Some of the diction is biblical; some is drily sardonic."[109]
2012–2013 World Tour
On August 12, 2012, Cohen embarked on a new European tour in support of Old Ideas, adding a violinist to his 2008–2010 tour band, now nicknamed Unified Heart Touring Band, and following the same three-hour setlist structure as in 2008–2012 tour, with addition of number of songs from Old Ideas. The European leg ended on October 7, after concerts in Belgium, Ireland (Royal Hospital), France (Olympia in Paris), England (Wembley Arena in London), Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy (Arena in Verona), Croatia (Arena in Pula), Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Romania and Turkey.[110]
The second leg of the Old Ideas World Tour took place in the US and Canada in November and December, with 56 shows altogether on both legs.[111]
Cohen returned to North America in the spring of 2013 with concerts in the United States and Canada. A summer tour of Europe happened shortly afterwards.[112]
Cohen then toured Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2013. His final concert was performed at the Vector Arena in Auckland.[113][114]
Popular Problems and You Want It Darker
Cohen released his thirteenth album, Popular Problems, on September 24, 2014.[115] The album includes "A Street", which he had previously recited in 2006, during promotion of his book of poetry Book of Longing, and later printed twice, as "A Street" in March 2, 2009 issue of The New Yorker magazine,[116] and appeared as "Party's Over" in Everyman's Library edition of Poems and Songs in 2011.
Cohen's fourteenth and final album, You Want It Darker, was released on October 21, 2016.[117]
Cultural impact and themes
Writing for AllMusic, critic Bruce Eder assessed Cohen's overall career in popular music by asserting that "[he is] one of the most fascinating and enigmatic ... singer/songwriters of the late '60s ... [and] has retained an audience across four decades of music-making ... Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon) [in terms of influence], he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s who is still working at the outset of the 21st century."[118]
The Academy of American Poets has commented more broadly on Cohen's overall career in the arts, including his work as a poet, novelist, and songwriter, stating that "Cohen's successful blending of poetry, fiction, and music is made most clear in Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, published in 1993, which gathered more than 200 of Cohen's poems ... several novel excerpts, and almost 60 song lyrics ... while it may seem to some that Leonard Cohen departed from the literary in pursuit of the musical, his fans continue to embrace him as a Renaissance man who straddles the elusive artistic borderlines."[119]
Themes of political and social justice also recur in Cohen's work, especially in later albums. In "Democracy", he both acknowledges political problems and celebrates the hopes of reformers: "from the wars against disorder/ from the sirens night and day/ from the fires of the homeless/ from the ashes of the gay/ Democracy is coming to the USA."[120] 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."
War is an enduring theme of Cohen's work that—in his earlier songs and early life—he approached ambivalently. Challenged in 1974 over his serious demeanor in concerts and the military salutes he ended them with, 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."[121]
It is a beautiful thing for us to be so deeply interested in each other. You have to write about something. Women stand for the objective world for a man, and they stand for the thing that you're not. And that's what you always reach for in a song.
Deeply moved by encounters with Israeli and Arab soldiers, he left the country to write "Lover Lover Lover". This song has been interpreted as a personal renunciation of armed conflict, and ends with the hope his song will serve a 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."[123] Asked which side he supported in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Cohen 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."[124]
In 1991, playwright Bryden MacDonald launched Sincerely, A Friend, a musical revue based on Cohen's music.[125]
Cohen is mentioned in the Nirvana song "Pennyroyal Tea" from the band's 1993 release, In Utero. Kurt Cobain wrote, "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/ So I can sigh eternally." Cohen, after Cobain's suicide, was quoted as saying "I'm sorry I couldn't have spoken to the young man. I see a lot of people at the Zen Centre, who have gone through drugs and found a way out that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him."[126] He is also mentioned in the lyrics of songs by Mercury Rev and Marillion.[127][128]
Personal life
Romantic relationships and children
In 1960, Leonard Cohen lived in rural Hydra, Greece, in an apartment with intermittent electricity that he was renting for fourteen dollars a month.[31] He lived with Marianne Ihlen (born in Norway 1935), and the song "So Long, Marianne" was written to and about her. Their relationship lasted for most of the 1960s. Marianne died in July 2016.[129][130] Cohen's farewell letter to Marianne was read at her funeral, stating that "... our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine."[131]
Cohen had a relationship beginning in the 1970s with the Los Angeles artist Suzanne Elrod, with whom he had two children: a son, Adam, born in 1972, and a daughter, Lorca, born in 1974 and named after poet Federico García Lorca. Adam Cohen began a career as a singer–songwriter in the mid-1990s and fronts a band called Low Millions, while Lorca took part in her father's tour team during the 2008–10 world tour as photographer and videographer. She also shot Cohen's video for the song "Because Of" in 2004, while her "Backstage Sketch" was included on Cohen's 2010 DVD Songs from the Road. She has directed and shot video clips for The Webb Sisters and Kamila Thompson. In 2011 Lorca gave birth to a daughter, with biological father Rufus Wainwright. Lorca is raising the child.[132]
Cohen said that "cowardice" and "fear" prevented him from ever actually marrying Elrod.[133][134] 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. She is also the "Dark Lady" of Cohen's 1978 book Death of a Lady's Man. Cohen and Elrod split up in 1979.[citation needed]
"Suzanne," one of his best-known songs, refers to Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of a friend, the Québécois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, rather than Elrod.[135]
In the 1980s, Cohen was in a relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann, who shot his first two music videos for the songs "Dance Me to the End of Love" and "First We Take Manhattan." Today Issermann is most famous for her photo sessions with Carla Bruni[136] and for her fashion photography for magazines such as Elle; in 2010 she was the official photographer of Cohen's world tour. Her photographs were used for the covers of his 1993 book Stranger Music and his album More Best of Leonard Cohen and for the inside booklet of Cohen's 1988 record I'm Your Man (which is dedicated to Issermann with the words "All these songs are for you, D.I.").[137]
In the 1990s, Cohen was romantically linked to actress Rebecca De Mornay.[138] De Mornay co-produced Cohen's 1992 album The Future, which is also dedicated to her with an inscription that quotes Rebecca's coming to the well from the Book of Genesis chapter 24[139] and giving drink to Eliezer's camels, after he prayed for the help; Eliezer ("God is my help" in Hebrew) is Cohen's Hebrew name, and Cohen sometimes referred to himself as "Eliezer Cohen" or even "Jikan Eliezer".[140]
In addition to his two children, Cohen had two grandchildren; grandson Cassius through his son Adam and granddaughter Viva through Lorca.[141]
Religious beliefs and practices
Cohen was described as a Sabbath-observant Jew in an article in The New York Times:
Mr. Cohen 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."[142]
In his concert in Ramat Gan, Israel, on September 24, 2009, Cohen spoke Jewish prayers and blessings to the audience in Hebrew. He opened the show with the first sentence of Ma Tovu. At the middle he used Baruch Hashem, and he ended the concert reciting the blessing of Birkat Cohanim.[143]
Cohen had a brief phase around 1970 of being interested in a variety of world views, which he later described as "from the Communist party to the Republican Party. From Scientology to delusions of me as the High Priest rebuilding the Temple".[144]
Cohen was involved with Buddhism beginning in the 1970s and was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1996; he continued to consider himself Jewish: "I'm not looking for a new religion. I'm quite happy with the old one, with Judaism."[145] Beginning in the late 1970s, Cohen was associated with Buddhist monk and rōshi (venerable teacher) Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, regularly visiting him at Mount Baldy Zen Center and serving him as personal assistant during Cohen's period of reclusion at Mount Baldy monastery in the 1990s. Sasaki appears as a regular motif or addressee in Cohen's poetry, especially in his Book of Longing, and took part in a 1997 documentary about Cohen's monastery years, Leonard Cohen: Spring 1996. Cohen's 2001 album Ten New Songs is dedicated to Joshu Sasaki.
Cohen showed an interest in Jesus as a universal figure, saying, "I'm very fond of Jesus Christ. He may be the most beautiful guy who walked the face of this earth. Any guy who says 'Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek' has got to be a figure of unparalleled generosity and insight and madness...A man who declared himself to stand among the thieves, the prostitutes and the homeless. His position cannot be comprehended. It is an inhuman generosity. A generosity that would overthrow the world if it was embraced because nothing would weather that compassion. I'm not trying to alter the Jewish view of Jesus Christ. But to me, in spite of what I know about the history of legal Christianity, the figure of the man has touched me."[146][page needed]
Speaking about his religion in a 2007 interview for BBC Radio 4's Front Row (partially re-broadcast on November 11, 2016) Cohen said:
My friend Brian Johnson said of me that I'd never met a religion I didn't like. […] That's why I've tried to correct that impression [that Cohen was looking for another religion besides Judaism] because I very much feel part of that tradition and I practise that and my children practise it, so that was never in question. The investigations that I've done into other spiritual systems have certainly illuminated and enriched my understanding of my own tradition.[147]
Death
Like for most of us, for me he dwelled in a higher strata inhabited by some living but mostly passed icons who seemed to have this direct line to the galaxy, whilst at the same time knowing exactly when to take out the trash. Formidable in both the sacred and the mundane... Farewell, Leonard, we need you now up there as much as we did down here.
Cohen died on November 7, 2016 at the age of 82 at his home in Los Angeles; cancer was a contributing cause.[148][149][150] His death was announced on November 10.[151] His funeral was held on November 10, 2016 in Montreal, at a cemetery on Mount Royal, his congregation Shaar Hashomayim confirmed. As was his wish, Cohen was laid to rest with a Jewish rite in a family plot.[152]
A memorial is planned to take place in Los Angeles. Cohen was survived by his two children and two grandchildren.[153][154][155]
Tributes were paid by numerous stars and political figures.[156][157]
Citizens and officials in Montreal, Canada, where he spent his early life, are considering honoring him by naming a street and other locations, including a library, after him.[158] Mayor Denis Coderre announced that the city of Montreal will organize a tribute concert to Cohen.[159]
Awards, titles and honours
Discography
- Studio albums
- Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- Songs from a Room (1969)
- Songs of Love and Hate (1971)
- New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974)
- Death of a Ladies' Man (1977)
- Recent Songs (1979)
- Various Positions (1984)
- I'm Your Man (1988)
- The Future (1992)
- Ten New Songs (2001)
- Dear Heather (2004)
- Old Ideas (2012)
- Popular Problems (2014)
- You Want It Darker (2016)
- Poetry
- Six Montreal Poets (1957)
Bibliography
Poetry
- Let Us Compare Mythologies. Montreal: Contact Press [McGill Poetry Series], 1956.[160] reissued 2007
- The Spice-Box of Earth. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1961.[160]
- Flowers for Hitler. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1964.[160]
- Parasites of Heaven. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966.[160]
- Selected Poems 1956–1968. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1968.[160]
- The Energy of Slaves. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. ISBN 0-7710-2204-2 ISBN 0-7710-2203-4 New York: Viking, 1973.[160]
- Death of a Lady's Man. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978. ISBN 0-7710-2177-1 London, New York: Viking, Penguin, 1979.[160] – reissued 2010
- Book of Mercy. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984.[160] – reissued 2010
- Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs. London, New York, Toronto: Cape, Pantheon, McClelland & Stewart, 1993.[160] ISBN 0-7710-2230-1
- Book of Longing. London, New York, Toronto: Penguin, Ecco, McClelland & Stewart, 2006.[160] (poetry, prose, drawings) ISBN 978-0-7710-2234-0
- The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen. London: Omnibus Press, 2009.[160] ISBN 0-7119-7141-2
- Poems and Songs. New York: Random House (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets), 2011.
- Fifteen Poems. New York: Everyman's Library/Random House, 2012. (eBook)
Novels
- The Favorite Game. London, New York, Toronto: Secker & Warburg, Viking P, McClelland & Stewart, 1963.[160] Reissued as The Favourite Game. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart [New Canadian Library], 1994. ISBN 978-0-7710-9954-0
- Beautiful Losers. New York, Toronto: Viking Press, McClelland & Stewart, 1966. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart [New Canadian Library], 1991. ISBN 978-0-7710-9875-8 McClelland & Stewart [Emblem], 2003.[160] ISBN 978-0-7710-2200-5
See also
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Notes
- ^ Although Hammond was originally supposed to produce the record, he was ill and was replaced by the producer John Simon.[9] Simon and Cohen clashed over instrumentation and mixing; Cohen wanted the album to have a sparse sound, while Simon felt the songs could benefit from arrangements that included strings and horns. According to biographer Ira Nadel, although Cohen was able to make changes to the mix, some of Simon's additions "couldn't be removed from the four-track master tape."[9]
- ^ The tour was filmed under the title Bird on a Wire, released in 2010.[38] Both tours were represented on the Live Songs LP. Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, released in 2009.
- ^ 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 "grotesque,"[44] but also "semi-virtuous."[45]
- ^ Lissauer produced Cohen's next record Various Positions, which was released in December 1984 (and in January and February 1985 in various European countries). The LP included "Dance Me to the End of Love," which was promoted by Cohen's first video clip, directed by French photographer Dominique Issermann, and the frequently covered "Hallelujah."
- ^ Although Columbia declined to release the album in the United States, where it was pressed in small number of copies by the independent Passport Records. Anjani Thomas, who would become Cohen's partner, and a regular member of Cohen's recording team, joined his touring band.
- ^ During the 1980s, almost all of Cohen's songs were performed in the Polish language by Maciej Zembaty.[52]
- ^ The album, self-produced by Cohen, was promoted by black-and-white video shot by Dominique Issermann at the beach of Normandy.
- ^ The tour gave the basic structure to typical Cohen's three-hour, two-act concert, which he used in his tours in 1993, 2008–10, and 2012. The selection of performances from the late 1980s was released in 1994 on Cohen Live.
- ^ Statistics from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); the Canadian Recording Industry Association; the Australian Recording Industry Association; and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry show more than five million copies of the song sold prior to late 2008 on compact disc. It has been the subject of a BBC Radio documentary and been featured in the soundtracks of numerous films and television programs.[59]
- ^ 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 Phil Spector as "True Love Leaves No Traces" on Death of a Ladies' Man album. Blue Alert also included Anjani's own version of "Nightingale", performed by her and Cohen on his Dear Heather, as well the country song "Never Got to Love You", apparently made after an early demo version of Cohen's own 1992 song "Closing Time". During the 2010 tour, Cohen was closing his live shows with the performance of "Closing Time" which included the recitation of verses from "Never Got to Love You". The title song, "Blue Alert", and "Half the Perfect World" were covered by Madeleine Peyroux on her 2006 album Half the Perfect World.[68]
- ^ In 2007, US. District Judge 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 filed against Cohen.[77] Cohen has been under new management since April 2005. In March 2012, Sylvie Simmons notes that Lynch was arrested in Los Angeles for "violating a permanent protective order that forbade her from contacting Leonard, which she had ignored repeatedly. On April 13, the jury found her guilty on all charges. On April 18 she was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and five years probation."[72] Cohen told that court, "It gives me no pleasure to see my onetime friend shackled to a chair in a court of law, her considerable gifts bent to the services of darkness, deceit, and revenge. It is my prayer that Ms. Lynch will take refuge in the wisdom of her religion, that a spirit of understanding will convert her heart from hatred to remorse, from anger to kindness, from the deadly intoxication of revenge to the lowly practices of self-reform."[78] In May 2016, United States District Judge Stephen Victor Wilson ordered the dismissal of Lynch's "RICO" suit against Leonard Cohen and his lawyers Robert Kory and Michelle Rice of Kory & Rice, LLP as "legally and/or factually patently frivolous." [79]
- ^ Simon Sweetman in The Dominion Post (Wellington) of January 21 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 Sydney Entertainment Centre show on January 28 sold out rapidly, which motivated promoters to announce a second show at the venue. The first performance was well-received, and the audience of 12,000 responded with five standing ovations. In response to hearing about the devastation to the Yarra Valley region of Victoria in Australia, Cohen 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.[87] 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 bushfires."[88]
- ^ Amnesty International withdrew from any involvement with the concert and its proceeds.[95] Amnesty International later stated that its withdrawal was not due to the boycott but "the lack of support from Israeli and Palestinian NGOs." [96] The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) led the call for the boycott, claiming that Cohen was "intent on whitewashing Israel's colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel."[92]
- ^ Cohen's work was presented by the translation of Book of Mercy, two of Cohen's biographies, and with selection of poems in major literary magazine Quorum, while there was also the translation of Linda Hutcheon's work on Cohen's literary output. In December 2010, the national daily newspaper Vjesnik ranked Cohen's show among the five most important cultural event in Croatia in 2010, in the poll among dozen of intellectuals and writers; it was the only event ranked which was not actually Croatian.[99] The tour continued through August, with stops in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, and Ireland, where on July 31, 2010 Cohen performed at Lissadell House in County Sligo. It was Cohen's eighth Irish concert in just two years after a hiatus of more than 20 years.[100] On August 12, Cohen played the 200th show of the tour in Scandinavium, Gothenburg, Sweden, where he had already played in October 2008; the show was four hours long.[citation needed]
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My – my mother was from Lithuania which was a part of Poland and my great-grandfather came over from Poland to Canada.
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- ^ "Defamation Suit Against Songwriter Cohen Is Dropped (Update2)". Bloomberg News. June 17, 2008. Retrieved August 4, 2009.
- ^ Leibovitz, Liel (2014). A Broken Hallelujah : Rock and Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 235. ISBN 0-393-08205-9.
- ^ Rice, Michelle (May 18, 2016). "5.18.16 Order Dismissing Kelley Lynch's RICO Suit". California: Scribd. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
- ^ "Cohen returns to limelight with bestselling book". CBC Arts. May 14, 2006. Archived from the original on December 9, 2006. Retrieved May 19, 2006.
- ^ "Book of Longing – Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen collaboration". Leonardcohenfiles.com. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen reveals details of world tour". Nme.Com. March 11, 2008. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ "Glastonbury headliners revealed". BBC News. February 8, 2008. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ "Glastonbury 2008 – Leonard Cohen". BBC. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ "Glastonbury says 'Hallelujah' to Leonard Cohen". Nme.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ Deming, Mark (2009). "Live in London". AllMusic. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ Swash, Rosie (February 10, 2009). "Leonard Cohen donates £90,000 to Australian bushfire victims". London: The Guardian. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen donates concert profits to bushfire relief fund". Herald Sun. February 11, 2009. Archived from the original on February 14, 2009.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen Dazzles at New York Tour Warm-Up". Retrieved February 20, 2009.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen OK after fainting on stage". CBC News. September 19, 2009. Archived from the original on September 22, 2009. Retrieved September 19, 2009.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen collapses on stage". BBC News. September 19, 2009. Retrieved September 19, 2009.
- ^ a b Kliger, Rachelle (July 13, 2009). "Leonard Cohen's Ramallah gig called off". mideast.jpost.com. Jerusalem Post. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen's blessed summer finale". Jerusalem Post. September 26, 2009. Retrieved September 26, 2009.
- ^ "Haaretz on proceeds from Tel Aviv concert". August 2, 2009. Retrieved July 15, 2010.
- ^ "Amnesty International and the Leonard Cohen Fund for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace" (PDF). Public document. Amnesty International. August 17, 2009. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Miller, Elan (August 23, 2009). "Amnesty yanks support for Cohen's peace concert". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on January 25, 2016. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
- ^ "Music's Top 40 Money Makers". Billboard. February 26, 2010. Retrieved March 1, 2010.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen postpones European tour after injury". Nme.com. 6 February 2010. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ Vjesnik.hr[dead link]
- ^ "Leonard Cohen at Lissadell House". Lissadellhouse.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ Simmons, Sylvie. I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, Ecco (2013)
- ^ "Lana Del Rey Debuts At No. 2, Adele Holds No. 1 on Billboard 200". Billboard. February 8, 2012. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen's "Going Home"". Culture Desk. The New Yorker. January 16, 2012. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Powers, Ann (January 22, 2012). "First Listen: Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas'". NPR. Retrieved January 24, 2012.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas: exclusive album stream". The Guardian. January 23, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2012.
- ^ Joe Levy (January 26, 2012). "Old Ideas | Album Reviews". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 7, 2012.
- ^ Kot, Greg (January 24, 2012). "Album review: Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Costa, Maddy (January 26, 2012). "Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas – review". Culture > Music. London: The Guardian. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Pareles, Jon (January 29, 2012). "Final Reckonings, a Tuneful Fedora and Forgiveness". Music. The New York Times. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ "World Tour 2013", Leonard Cohen Files
- ^ Pelly, Jenn (May 3, 2012). "Leonard Cohen Announces North American Tour". Pitchfork. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
- ^ Battan, Carrie (January 9, 2013). "Leonard Cohen Plans North American Tour". Pitchfork. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
- ^ Greene, Andy (October 6, 2015). "Flashback: Leonard Cohen Plays Final Encore at Last Concert". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
- ^ "Legendary singer Leonard Cohen dies". Sky News. November 11, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen Releasing New Album 'Popular Problems' Two Days After 80th Birthday". Billboard. August 19, 2014. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
- ^ "A Street by Leonard Cohen". The New Yorker. March 2, 2009. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
- ^ Greene, Andy. "Hear Leonard Cohen's Mesmerizing New Song 'You Want It Darker'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
- ^ "Eder, Bruce. "Leonard Cohen: Biography." Allmusic by Rovi". AllMusic. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen: Poet, Novelist, Musician". Poets.org. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ "Democracy lyrics on the Official Leonard Cohen Site". Retrieved April 13, 2014.
- ^ "1974 Interview from "Leonard Cohen" by Manzano". Webheights.net. October 12, 1974. Retrieved July 26, 2010.
- ^ AmericaSings (November 12, 2016). "Leonard Cohen "Lover Lover Lover", 1979 tour" – via YouTube.
- ^ (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, October 4, 2001
- ^ "1974 Interview from "Leonard Cohen" by Manzano". Webheights.net. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn, The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama: M-Z, Volume 2 (p. 843). Columbia University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-231-14424-7.
- ^ de Lisle, Tim (September 17, 2004). "Who held a gun to Leonard Cohen's head?". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "Mercury Rev – All Is Dream". musicOMH. August 27, 2001.
- ^ "Montreal". Marillion. Retrieved August 25, 2015.
- ^ Stang Ihlen, Marianne Christine (July 29, 2016). "Leonard Cohen Muse Marianne Ihlen, of "So Long, Marianne," Passes Away". Everything Zoomer. Retrieved August 2, 2016.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen’s muse Marianne Ihlen dies at age 81". Toronto Star, August 4, 2016 (printed version, August 5, 2016, page A3).
- ^ "Leonard Cohen's letter to dying muse Marianne Ihlen is just beautiful | Metro News". Metro.co.uk. August 7, 2016. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
- ^ Topping, Alexandra (February 21, 2011). "Rufus Wainwright and Lorca Cohen announce birth of Viva Katherine". The Guardian. Retrieved April 26, 2013.
- ^ "Transcript of Stina Lundberg's Interview in Paris, 2001". Webheights.net. 2001. Retrieved July 26, 2010.
- ^ de Lisle, Tim (September 17, 2004). "Who held a gun to Leonard Cohen's head?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved February 6, 2010.
- ^ "The Story of Suzanne". BBC Radio 4 interview with Suzanne Verdal McCallister. leonardcohenfiles.com. June 6, 1998. Retrieved November 19, 2010.
- ^ "Dominique Issermann". Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. May 1, 2010. Archived from the original on February 15, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
- ^ Cohen, Leonard (2012). "I'm Your Man" (in Croatian). Leonardcohencroatia.com. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Cohen, Leonard (June 1, 1993). "Knowing Rebecca de Mornay Like Only Leonard Cohen Can". Interview magazine. Retrieved November 19, 2010.
- ^ Cohen, Leonard (2012). "The Future". A Record by Leonard Cohen (in Croatian). Leonardcohencroatia.com. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
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- ^ "Leonard Cohen's third act – Macleans.ca". September 21, 2016.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Cohen using Jewish prayers and blessings in Hebrew in his concert in Israel". Forward.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
- ^ Jeff Burger (April 1, 2014). Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen. Chicago Review Press. p. 374.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen: Poet, Prophet, Eternal Optimist;". Myjewishlearning.com. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ Leonard Cohen: In His Own Words (In Their Own Words) Paperback. July 7, 1998.
- ^ Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Ella-mai Robey (November 11, 2016). "Leonard Cohen, BalletBoyz, Contemporary war poetry". Front Row. 26:28 minutes in. BBC. BBC Radio 4.
- ^ Beeston, Laura (November 12, 2016). "Montrealers make pilgrimage to Leonard Cohen's old haunts". thestar.com. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen Died on Monday, Sony Confirms". Billboard.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen, singer-songwriter of love, death and philosophical longing, dies at 82". Washington Post. November 10, 2016.
- ^ Monroe, Jazz. "Leonard Cohen Died on Monday, Buried Yesterday | Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen died Monday, funeral held Thursday in Montreal". Montreal Gazette. November 11, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ DrHGuy (November 10, 2016). "Leonard Cohen Is Dead; Our World Is Darker".
- ^ "Leonard Cohen Dead at 82". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ "Leonard Cohen dead at 82: tributes pour in to legendary singer-songwriter", The Telegraph UK, November 11, 2016
- ^ "Leonard Cohen dies: Celebrities pay tribute to the singer-songwriter", Entertainment Weekly, November 10, 2016
- ^ "Leonard Cohen dead at 82: Justin Trudeau leads tributes to 'remarkable' musician and poet", Independent UK, November 10, 2016
- ^ "What is the best way for Montreal to pay tribute to Leonard Cohen?", Montreal Gazette, November 11, 2016
- ^ "Fans hold sing-along vigil for Leonard Cohen outside his Montreal home". cbcnews. November 12, 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Search results: Leonard Cohen". Openlibrary.org. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
Further reading
- Burger, Jeff (2014). 'Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-61374-758-2.
- Hofmann, Philipp (2010). Corporeal Cartographies: The Body in the Novels of Leonard Cohen. Lit Publishing House. ISBN 978-3-643-11035-0.
- Nadel, Ira (1997). Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen' (1st ed.). University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-71732-6.
- Ratcliff, Maurice (1999). The complete guide to the music of Leonard Cohen. Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-7508-6.
- Scobie, Stephen (2000). Intricate preparations: writing Leonard Cohen. ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-433-6.
- Simmons, Sylvie (2012). I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-199498-2.
External links
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Media from Commons |
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Quotations from Wikiquote |
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Data from Wikidata |
- Official website
- Leonard Cohen at DMOZ
- Leonard Cohen at the Internet Movie Database
- The Leonard Cohen Files
- Stafford, Jeff (August 21, 2010). "Bird on a Wire (1972)". TCM Movie Morlocks.
Documentary account of Cohen’s European tour
- "Leonard Cohen". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- Brittain, Donald; Owen, Don (1965). "Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen" (video). Documentary. National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
- "Canadian Poetry: Studies/Documents/Reviews". The Proceedings of the Leonard Cohen Conference (22–24 October 1993). Red Deer College. 33. Fall 1993.
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