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Friday, Nov 11 2016, 6AM
Good morning and happy Friday. We mourn the death of Leonard Cohen today. Here's an obituary from the NY Times:www.nytimes.com
The artists in this exclusive medley are, in turn, Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, and Leonard Cohen again. Read how this song, "Hallelujah," became the paean and dirge for millions: www.theatlantic.com
Perhaps his music is the " way to say goodbye." He said of this song, "This is an old song that I wrote when I was old. I was a lot older then."
"And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers..." Here's an interview with the Suzanne Verdal McCallister, who (possibly) inspired this song:
Here's a "little more" on Leonard Cohen's "Master Song": www.leonardcohenfiles.com
"Trav'ling lady, stay awhile until the night is over...." Read the lyrics to "Winter Lady": www.metrolyrics.com
This song is one of the songs that defined Altman's 1971 film, "McCabe and Mrs. Miller": www.huffingtonpost.com
Ian McCulloch is best known as frontman for Echo & The Bunnymen: www.facebook.com
This is a powerful song about thee French Resistance to the Nazi occupation of their country. Learn more about it here: consequenceofsound.net
"Kris Kristofferson has penned some of the most memorable lyrics in country and rock music history, and yet he has gone on record as saying he would like the opening lines of a song he didn’t write to be used as his epitaph. Such is the power of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird On The Wire,” a song that ruminates on the impossibility of freedom in a world rife with tethers".: americansongwriter.com
Watch Mr. Cohen performing this intense song in a live performance in Warsaw in 1985: www.youtube.com
There's much speculation about the meaning of this song: www.challies.com
In a final letter to ex-girlfriend Marianne Ihlen, Leonard Cohen wrote," “Well Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and 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.":www.ibtimes.co.uk
"I have tried in my way to be free...." Here are the lyrics to "Bird on a Wire": www.lyricsfreak.com
This review of "Songs of Love and Hate" says, "If there is one thing that Leonard Cohen teaches us, it’s that being happy is completely overrated.": www.treblezine.com
Here's an analysis of "Leonard Cohen’s “Last Year's Man” in the light of William Blake’s “Illustrations
of the Book of Job”: www.leonardcohenfiles.com
The "Leonard Cohen Forum" discusses the meaning of this song: www.leonardcohenforum.com
Leonard Cohen acknowledged in a 1992 interview with Paul Zollo that his "chop", his unique pattern of playing classical guitar, is behind many of his early songs, and this one features Cohen's trademark fast, syncopated classical guitar pattern as the accompaniment on the recording of the song.: www.leonardcohenfiles.com
This video of "Love Calls You by Your Name" features many pictures of Mr. Cohen throughout the years: www.youtube.com
Geoffrey Oryema is a world-renowned Ugandan musician: geoffrey-oryema.com
Read about the cover art for "New Skin for the Old Ceremony": cohencentric.com
Leonard Cohen first met Nico, singer with the Velvet Underground, in New York. He became besotted with her and this song expresses his unrequited love for the German songstress. Speaking in 1992 with the magazine Throat Culture, Cohen recalled: "Nico was very strange. I tried to talk to her and she always replied very mysteriously. "It was only after many weeks, after being perplexed by her conversation and paralyzed by her beauty that she told me she was deaf. She responded to everyone with whatever came into her mind because she could hardly hear a thing. Which explains her particularly strange style. But I definitely wrote 'Take This Longing' thinking of her."
Read a biography of this British '80's alternative rock band: www.allmusic.com
Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well, I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned.
When you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned. Here he is, singing this song live in 2013: www.youtube.com
In New York City this morning, the memorial to Leonard Cohen is growing outside the Chelsea Hotel: patch.com
"As the mist leaves no scar on the dark green hill..." Read the lyrics to "True Love...": www.lyricsfreak.com
Many of his lines are indelibly etched in our memories. He said, "We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear." And..."I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere."
This Allmusic review of "Recent Songs" says, "Though often abstract, Recent Songs suggested Cohen had regained a certain equilibrium after a long dark period.": www.allmusic.com
There are many, many covers of this wonderful song. Here's one list of "the ten best versions": www.cnet.com
“If It Be Your Will” is a simple statement – a prayer, really – of resignation that begins with a promise to surrender a singer’s most treasured asset – his voice – if God deems it necessary. Read more about this lovely song: justasong2.blogspot.com
Here's The Man in Black singing this song live:www.youtube.com
“I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.” --Leonard Cohen
Here's the video for Pixies' cover of "I Can't Forget" from the Leonard Cohen tribute album, "I'm Your Fan": www.youtube.com
"I was born with the gift of a golden voice..." Read the lyrics (and the French translation): www.leonardcohensite.com
"“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” --Leonard Cohen Watch a 2014 live performance of "I'm Your Man": www.youtube.com
Roscoe Beck, the producer of Cohen's original version of this song, said, ""I was also taken aback by the lyrics," he added. "They scared me. The singer's character seemed mentally unstable, and I wondered what the song was about. Leonard says it's someone who's an outsider, demented and menacing. I had an eerie feeling about it."
One of Cohen's most powerful lines comes from this album. On "Anthem," he wrote, "Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in." Journalist Andrew Sullivan said, "[That line] that has always stayed with me. It kept me going in a bleak moment in my life, when I thought, as we all sometimes do, that I couldn’t see how good could come out of the dreck I had turned my life into."
Read a Guardian mixed review of "Dear Heather" when it was released in 2004: www.theguardian.com
Read about how Leonard Cohen "went broke": www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
