Stavros
11-11-2016, 10:53 AM
I told you when I came I was a stranger
Leonard Cohen, one of the singer-songwriters who transformed music in the 1960s, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 82. He began publishing poetry in Canada in the 1950s and turned to music and performance in the 1960s in an attempt to make the money he could not make from publishing. As with Bob Dylan, Cohen's voice was suited to his lyrics- gritty, deep with that unmistakable tinge of misery. And as he was not a great singer, so many people were unable to warm to his work which, amidst the gloom and despair also contains much affection and hope. Suzanne was the first song I heard that led me to buy his first album, closely followed by a collection of poems, and his novel Beautiful Losers. Although I did not retain much interest in his work in the years that followed, his first two albums are amongst the very few that I continue to listen to from that distant era having stood the test of time.
There are too many good songs to choose -So long, Marianne; Sisters of Mercy; etc, so I prefer to quote him as a poet, his first vocation, with this simple but memorable Haiku-
Silence
and a deeper silence
when the crickets
hesitate
Leonard Cohen, one of the singer-songwriters who transformed music in the 1960s, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 82. He began publishing poetry in Canada in the 1950s and turned to music and performance in the 1960s in an attempt to make the money he could not make from publishing. As with Bob Dylan, Cohen's voice was suited to his lyrics- gritty, deep with that unmistakable tinge of misery. And as he was not a great singer, so many people were unable to warm to his work which, amidst the gloom and despair also contains much affection and hope. Suzanne was the first song I heard that led me to buy his first album, closely followed by a collection of poems, and his novel Beautiful Losers. Although I did not retain much interest in his work in the years that followed, his first two albums are amongst the very few that I continue to listen to from that distant era having stood the test of time.
There are too many good songs to choose -So long, Marianne; Sisters of Mercy; etc, so I prefer to quote him as a poet, his first vocation, with this simple but memorable Haiku-
Silence
and a deeper silence
when the crickets
hesitate