Leonard Cohen Rest In Peace

I can only hope he slipped out of consciousness 70 hours or so ago.

he died monday

His last words were "Thanks, Obama"

(don't worry, I'll fp myself)

RIP Leonard ;_;

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1e/25/57/1e25575fb5d122e8f0bf6c8755c90789.jpg

weirdest irony of my adult life was getting my Mum into Leonard & now she's seen him live like 3 times and I have seen him zero times

My mother's been into LC her whole life (and been to many gigs) and just posted a really lovely post on FB of all places and also managed to refer to DJT as 'that orange arseh0le' so mum otm

He was my first folk music to hear. My dad had two of his records that I found in his stack. Then I heard him on Pump Up The Volume and pulled them out again. Its been a love affair ever since. Rest in Peace

it is hard to even think of what to say. Cohen is one of those artists who can make time stand still w just a voice and an acoustic guitar. Cohen was a shining light in this godless world. he wrote about spirituality with a sense of sincerity, wisdom, and humor that you don't see much, or at all, in pop music. my favorite album of his, "Death of a Ladies Man", imo is the modern "Dark Night of the Soul".

RIP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WirxqAn7Ck8

Always loved this speech he gave a few years ago, in which he recounts how his education as a guitarist was touched by tragedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIR5ps8usuo

RIP, Leonard, thank you ...

I especially love his acceptance speech for the R&R Hall of Fame. He recites Tower of Song, and the couplets hit like punchlines. An audience unfamiliar with the song might have thought he was just making extemporaneous observations that rhymed almost by accident. It's a testament to his stagecraft and wit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9IZfiHEgd8

obv Cohen-sceptic response: I think you'll find that was him singing

Now the clasp of this union
Who fastens it tight?
Who snaps it asunder
The very next night
Some say the rider
Some say the mare
Or that love's like the smoke
Beyond all repair

But my darling says
"Leonard, just let it go by
That old silhouette
On the great western sky"
So I pick out a tune
And they move right along
And they're gone like the smoke
And they're gone like this song

It's written on the walls of this hotel
You go to heaven once you've been to hell

A heavy burden lifted from my soul
I heard that love was out of my control

I think you'll find that was him singing

Even better.

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

There's a lot of stuff from the 2000s onward that I'm less familiar with, it's all great

RIP (music from people who figured out how to live)

Quite long (18 page PDF) but great interview a couple of weeks ago: https://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/darkerlaunchevent.pdf

In many ways his later, more recent stuff is as good or even better than the folk stuff. The cheesy synths I find fascinating in their contrast, and I think his wry humor became even more apparent. They're less heard than the "hits," but like few other songwriters his later albums produced so many songs that have the weight of classics. Even aside from "Hallelujah," which obviously was not some epochal cultural statement back in 1984, there are songs like "Dance Me to the End of Love," "The Future," "Anthem," "Waiting for the Miracle," "Everybody Knows," "Tower of Song," "In My Secret Life," etc. 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. How many other '60s-associated acts could release a similar collection where the formative works and later output could cohabitant so cohesively? Or, by the standard of Christgau, where the fourth CD of the chronological box set is as good as the first?

Amazing that he was, what, already 30 when he released his first album?

Not sad. He was 82. An inspiration for the rest of my life, the lives of many generations to come. Few artists are as important to me as Leonard Cohen is. He inhabits a place so spiritual, so visceral that I can't feel like he is truly gone.

So yes thank you thank you thank you.

:)

I'm catching up properly with the thread now - I have too much to say and can't say it, but everyone otm. I've been listening to him at work all day in a constant state of emotional vertigo.

songwriters have all kinds of opinions about artists but I don't know any songwriters who don't consider Leonard Cohen one of the best to ever take up the craft. I feel like he's one of those artists who you really remember when you got into him, and how -- for me it was Nick Cave's cover of "Avalanche," when I was 16, that set me searching for this guy. A friend sent me a dub of "Live Songs," the one with "Please Don't Pass Me By" on it, when it was a really hard one to find -- mindblowing stuff for me then. A giant. 82 is a good life. I know the Maker of All Songs will be as excited to see Leonard Cohen as Leonard Cohen will be to see Him.

― though she denies it to the press, (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, November 11, 2016 2:51 AM (fourteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3

if you haven't seen it, it's worth searching out the Ladies and Gentleman... Mr. Leonard Cohen doc. It's a fantastic look at Cohen as a young celebrity poet in Canada, before he shifted his focus to music.

I believe that he was ready to die; but I wasn't ready to lose him, and that's why I'm sad.

I'd really love a poll for Leonard Cohen right now.

I'd love it only if every song got one vote.

In many ways his later, more recent stuff is as good or even better than the folk stuff. The cheesy synths I find fascinating in their contrast, and I think his wry humor became even more apparent. They're less heard than the "hits," but like few other songwriters his later albums produced so many songs that have the weight of classics. Even aside from "Hallelujah," which obviously was not some epochal cultural statement back in 1984, there are songs like "Dance Me to the End of Love," "The Future," "Anthem," "Waiting for the Miracle," "Everybody Knows," "Tower of Song," "In My Secret Life," etc. 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. How many other '60s-associated acts could release a similar collection where the formative works and later output could cohabitant so cohesively? Or, by the standard of Christgau, where the fourth CD of the chronological box set is as good as the first?

Amazing that he was, what, already 30 when he released his first album?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, November 11, 2016 6:02 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

imagine having written "bird on the wire" and being able to do 3hr+ concerts where you get "bird on the wire" out of the way within 5 songs

I'd really love a poll for Leonard Cohen right now.

I brought this over in the rolling poll thread. Any volunteers for a runner?

I'll do it if someone can show me the ropes. Especially if someone else can handle the images.

Favourite song / favourite album / favourite cover version. NO worst anything.

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.