Leonard Cohen Rest In Peace

Somebody just sent me this, which I saw when it was first broadcast in the 80s, on Michelob Presents Night Music, AKA Sunday Night. If it doesn't come through, try searching Leonard Cohen Sonny Rollins on YouTube---it's bracing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6HUCbSb-9c

Dale Peck non--hatchet job:
https://www.facebook.com/dale.peck.773/posts/10154791854268623

His "Essential" collection, in both its 2 and 3 disc iterations, doesn't include a duff track, and the more recent songs sit perfectly well with his earlier stuff.

my go-to Cohen. The Sly Stone Essential is also uh essential.

Didn't know how I would mark this but heard the first two albums in a record store yesterday. Decided I would play some songs for my 15 year old daughter so I picked "First We Take Manhattan," "Tower of Song," "Hallelujah," and "Suzanne."

what did she think?

I played some stuff for my kids the other day, and you should have seen them light up with recognition when it got to Hallelujah. Amazing, as ubiquitous as versions of that song are, how few have heard the original.

I haven't read the book, but I'd love to read reviews of that album and see if any singled out that song as particularly special.

I'm not sure, she was quiet. It's a lot to take in.

Holy Shit at the SNL cold open...

Care to describe?

Seems odd to invoke Cohen, wasn't exactly a slow news week

SPOILER ALERT

Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton playing piano and singing "Hallelujah" (very well on both counts BTW), concluding with a message to "not give up".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lWcqbVKhCs

ugh this version kills me

I got to see his NYC comeback show at the Beacon in ... 2009? Was a pretty magical night.

No disrespect meant to McKinnon but I hated the whole conceit of that "Hallelujah" cover so goddamn much

Especially considering SNL was as complicit as anyone in normalizing/mainstreaming Trump.

xgau: https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/our-man-the-sophisticate-robert-christgau-remembers-leonard-cohen

a monologue about the six stages of male sex appeal—irresistible, resistible, transparent, invisible, repulsive, and cute

ah, I guess i should hold out from my perch here on "invisible."

http://etcanada.com/news/180784/leonard-cohens-ex-fiance-rebecca-de-mornay-remembers-the-late-icon/

POLL on, my brother: The Leonard Cohen Memorial POLL Voting Thread - Ballots due Midnight ET, Dec. 1st

He was still working on a couple more albums, right up 'til the end---wonder if they'll be released? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/arts/music/leonard-cohen-last-days.html?_r=0

Touching interview with Jennifer Warnes:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-jennifer-warnes-leonard-cohen-20161111-story.html

That xpost xgau send-off is very fine, his aim is true, almost to the end: don't agree that the voice turned back into "a husk" on You Want It Darker---he's right that if it did, it wouldn't be the first time, but I don't hear it that way. Or if he's technically right, then it's quite the textured husk, turned this way and that.

Will check the interview tomorrow; have to pace myself, with so many checking out lately.

I have Cohen's whole catalog on shuffle right now. He didn't really have any bad songs, did he?

― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Friday, November 11, 2016 12:45 PM (six days ago)

otm, he's one of the few artists with a long recording career that you can do that with. even dylan has some stinkers (imo), but with leonard cohen you're almost certainly going to land on a decent song at the very least, every single time

I used to spot him regularly when I was in high-school, on our lunch breaks we'd go to this Portuguese chicken place that was just far enough to get take out and get back in time, and we'd see him walking up and down Saint-Laurent, always with his arms wrapped around Anjani, the two of them walking slowly, totally oblivious to the rest of the world. it was cute, i remember being surprised, he seemed to be as romantic as the guy in the old songs.

One anecdote that I love: my friend Vincent's mother put on a play about his life, around that time, and invited him to the debut. he accepted, sat in the front row, but spent the entire performance with his back to the stage, engaged in some sloppy heavy petting with Ms Thomas. lol <3

ha!! that is great

it really is. <3

with leonard cohen you're almost certainly going to land on a decent song at the very least, every single time

Except "Jazz Police". Why Leonard, why?

xxp great story

!!

I like Jazz Police. It's disconcertingly kitschy but harmonically interesting (that's what she said).

Jazz Police is great fuiud

i've been listening on shuffle a lot too. previously i kind of settled in on new skin through recent songs as my favorite period but so much of the other stuff has resonated more this time. "here it is" from ten new songs blew me away this morning

No, Jazz Police is not great, it's shit.

The only song I don't like on I'm Your Man is the title track, as it is just too musically slight.

imo "jazz police" rules

eh

I've heard it once. I skip it.

I'm a fan of Jazz Police, it's very silly, but I'm cool with that

For a song that's basically an in-joke between Cohen and the band it's a lot of fun. Guessing it did not take as long to write as hallelujah

Although I find it funny to think of him writing 80 verses

Did anyone ever edit together all extant verses, like on Youtube for instance?

a larf via the ny times copy desk

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/11/16/rather-unfortunate-newspaper-correction-leonard-cohen/

lol I don't need to open that to know which correction they're referring to

“I don't like what you done to my mister..."

My favorite Leonard Cohen story is the one that I think came from Rufus Wainwright. Where he goes to his apartment to meet before a collaboration, and Leonard Cohen is there basically in his underwear. He greets him, excuses himself for a few minutes, then comes back in a perfectly tailored suit.

anyone have a quote from Cohen regarding the musical choices he made (sparse, digital, dubbed) from ~Various Position onwards?

this SOS article is interesting enough but I'm curious to know what motivated him and what kind of band sounds he likes http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/inside-track-leonard-cohen-slow

The Singles Jukebox pays tribute

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22642-im-your-man/