Obituary:
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen was
called "the high priest of pathos" and the "godfather
of gloom"
But the influence
and appeal of this poet, novelist, songwriter and legendary ladies'
man has endured throughout his career.
Often prone to
depression throughout his life, his often witty, charming and
self-deprecating manner was reflected in his lyrics.
And after a period
of retreat in the 1990s he remerged with his creativity undimmed.
Leonard Norman Cohen
was born in Westmount, a well-to-do area of Montreal, on 21 September
1934.
His mother had
emigrated from Lithuania to Canada and his father Nathan, whose
ancestors came from Poland, owned a prosperous clothing store.
His father died when
Cohen was just nine years old but left his son a trust fund that
would enable him to pursue his chosen literary career.
The young Cohen
attended a privately run Jewish co-educational day school where he
learned to play guitar and formed a folk group called the Buckskin
Boys. "Guitars impress girls", was the reasoning he gave.
In 1951 he enrolled
at Montreal's McGill University to study English Literature, and
published his first collection of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies,
in 1956.
His poetry was
well-received and after a year at Columbia University in New York he
turned to writing full-time producing his second collection of poems,
entitled The Spice Box of Earth, in 1961 when he was 27.
The volume
established Cohen's reputation as a serious poet and became his most
popular work. The poem, You Have the Lovers, captured his fascination
with human relationships.
Cohen then moved to
the small Greek island of Hydra, publishing his first novel, The
Favourite Game, in 1963. He lived there with Norwegian Marianne
Jensen, for whom he later wrote 'So Long Marianne'.
Beautiful Losers,
Cohen's second novel, was published in 1966, and was the last of his
writing before he quit Hydra to move to the United States.
Volatile
He arrived in New
York in 1967, determined to pursue a career as a songwriter and
musician. His debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen which, while
failing to become commercially successful, turned into something of a
cult classic for folk buffs.
The song Suzanne,
based on his poem Suzanne Takes You Down, became a hit for Judy
Collins and has been covered by a variety of artists over the years.
Over the next seven
years he recorded three more albums, Songs From a Room, Songs of Love
and Hate and New Skin for the Old Ceremony, all of which featured in
a series of US, Canadian and European tours on which he embarked
during the 1970s.
These included a
remarkable appearance at a highly charged Isle of Wight Festival in
1970. The crowd was volatile, Cohen was following an electrifying
performance by Jimi Hendrix, but the quiet folk singer's commanding
presence and intimate performance soon won the hostile crowd over and
it is remembered as one of the defining moments of the whole
Festival.
In 1973 Cohen went
to Israel to volunteer for active service in the Yom Kippur war.
Instead he was assigned to entertain troops in a tank division where
he once found himself coming under fire in the Sinai desert.
The recording of his
fifth album, Death of a Ladies' Man, descended into near farce. Cohen
clashed with the unstable producer, Phil Spector, whose 'wall of
sound' technique was at odds with Cohen's quiet acoustic based music.
The resulting album was not a success.
Cohen's music fell
out of favour in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but interest revived
in 1985 with the release of the album Various Positions. This
featured the track Hallelujah, which became the most covered Cohen
composition of all time.
Embezzled
Popular singer
Jennifer Warnes featured on that album and on his 1988 release, I'm
Your Man, arguably his most accessible album, and the one which
returned him to the mainstream of popular music.
Cynical commentaries
such as First We take Manhattan, were paired with beautiful songs of
love like the title track and Take This Waltz.
In 1991 a tribute
album, I'm Your Fan, a collection of his songs covered by artistes
such as REM, The Pixies and John Cale, again pushed Leonard Cohen
back into the limelight.
However, by this
time, Cohen had begun spending time at a Buddhist retreat in
California and eventually moved there to become a Buddhist monk in
1996.
He finally emerged
in 1999 with a wealth of new material, some of which featured on his
2001 album aptly titled Ten New Songs.
Co-written with the
producer and vocalist, Sharon Robinson, who also played all the
instruments, it saw Cohen in introspective and relaxed mood, but
perhaps contemplating mortality with lyrics such as, "the night
is getting colder".
In 2006 Cohen, at
the age of 73, was obliged to return to touring when he discovered
that his manager (and former lover)Kelley Lynch had embezzled more
than $5 million from his account.
Despite winning a
court case against her, and being awarded huge damages, she failed to
pay back any of the money. Lynch would later be jailed after
violating a court order to keep away from Cohen.
Two years later he
embarked on a massive concert tour in 2008 which ran for 18 months
and included a performance on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury which
was seen by many as the highlight of the festival.
2012 saw the release
of Old Ideas, which became his highest charting album of all time.
Many critics saw the songs on the album as an intimation of his own
mortality. However, despite his advancing years, Cohen set off on a
world tour to promote the album
Leonard Cohen was,
arguably, one of the most enigmatic poets and songwriters of his
generation. While many of the themes in his work hinted at
depression, he always felt that he was just a keen observer of the
realities of life.
"Seriousness,
rather than depression is, I think, the characteristic of my work,"
he once told an interviewer. " I like a good laugh, but I think
there's enjoyment that comes through seriousness. We all know when we
close the door and come into your room and you're left with your
heart and your emotions, it isn't all that funny."
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