Section: Saturday Observer
Outlet: The Ottawa Citizen
Illustrations:
Photo: Neal Preston, Corbis / Leonard Cohen at the Mount Baldy Zen Center in 1995. He left the center, where he had been living as Zen monk Jikan, the 'Silent One,' in 1999. He now lives and works in Los Angeles.
Headline: 70 things you don't (or maybe you do) know about Leonard Cohen: Canada's most prolific poet, singer and songwriter, Leonard Cohen, turns 70 on Tuesday. As fans across the world prepare for the anniversary -- celebrations are planned in Toronto, Edmonton, Barcelona and Toowoomba, Australia -- here are some little-known facts about the Montreal-born legend.
Page: B3
Date: Saturday 18 September 2004
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
1) Cohen has a certificate from the county of San Bernadino that qualifies him to work as a waiter, busboy, or cook.
2) He precedes his personalized autographs with the phrase "All Good Things."
3) He enjoys matzo ball soup.
4) As a student at McGill University, Cohen was president of the debating society.
5) He refers to his writing as "blackening pages."
6) When a reporter asked him several years ago if he considered any of his songs to be humorous, he replied: "Of course, they're all hilarious."
7) Leonard Cohen was one of 21 honorary pallbearers at Pierre Trudeau's funeral (along with Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter).
He bought his house on the Greek island, Hydra, in 1960 for $1,500. 9) Cohen was cited by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain in the song Pennyroyal Tea: "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/ So I can sigh eternally."
10) Cohen's most revered songwriter was Hank Williams who, as his lyrics says, owns the "top floor in the tower of song."
11) When he was asked during an interview where all this beautiful poetry came from, Cohen answered: "I don't know. If I knew that, I'd go there more often."
12) Singer Judy Collins takes credit for convincing the young poet to sing.
13) Cohen was the title character in Looking for Leonard, a movie about the discontented girlfriend of a bank robber whose hollow existence is brightened only by the prose of Leonard Cohen.
14) Singer Rufus Wainwright said of him recently: "I really believe he's the greatest living poet on earth."
15) Cohen has suffered from manic depression for much of his life.
16) He once said: "The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape."
17) Cohen invented a beverage called The Red Needle, which includes cranberry juice, tequila, crushed ice and a citrus fruit on the side.
18) It is said that on the day Cohen recovered from writing his novel, Beautiful Losers, storks returned to the island of Hydra.
19) Beautiful Losers was described by one reviewer as "the most revolting book ever written in Canada."
20) The place of his birth, Montreal, is never mentioned in his songs.
21) He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1991.
22) His middle name is Norman.
23) His Hebrew name is Eliezer.
24) His Dharma name is Jikan, which means "silent one."
25) He was ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk in 1996 at the Mount Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, where he has lived over the years.
26) In 2003, Cohen was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest honour.
27) He once recorded with jazz legend Sonny Rollins.
28) His latest album, Dear Heather, comes out in October. He is also working on a new book of poetry and drawings called Book of Longing.
29) Cohen's book about the Holocaust, Dance Me to the End of Love, features illustrations by Henri Matisse.
30) After he recorded Ain't No Cure for Love in 1988, Cohen sent the single to Columbia Records radio reps along with $2.
31) He met actress Rebecca de Mornay as a schoolgirl and dated her as an adult.
32) Cohen was never married, but had two children with Suzanne Elrod. He also had a long relationship with de Mornay.
33) He has been called the Lord Byron of Rock. Byron, also an avid writer, was notorious for being an emotional cynic.
34) At Columbia University in New York, Cohen began to write his MA thesis on one of his own books. He never finished the thesis or the degree.
35) Chronicled in his high school yearbook, Cohen aspired to be a "world-famous orator."
36) Songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (Bye Bye Love, etc.) owned the Tennessee cabin that Leonard rented in the late '60s.
37) Cohen once carved a self-portrait of himself in a pumpkin.
38) His daughter, Lorca, is named after Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
39) Cohen was signed by the label Columbia Records 37 years ago.
40) He appeared on Miami Vice as guest character Zolan in 1986.
41) Cohen narrated a Canadian documentary about the classic text, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, in 1994.
42) Cohen is one of the most interpreted artists in pop music history. His song, Hallelujah, was covered by Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Patricia O'Callaghan and Bob Dylan.
43) According to one website, there are over 720 cover versions of Cohen's music.
44) Producer Phil Spector pointed a gun to Cohen's head during the recording of Death of a Ladies Man, then told Cohen that he loved him.
45) Cohen has been said to spend more than two years working on one stanza of one song.
46) When he first sought spiritual guidance on Mount Baldy, Cohen was advised by his roshi (spiritual guide) to take up tennis.
47) Cohen enjoys drawing pictures with his computer.
48) When he has a visitor to his home, Cohen will make a sandwich and give his guest half.
49) The cover of Cohen's first record, Songs of Leonard Cohen, was taken in a photo booth.
50) When Columbia Records questioned whether or not to sign the young musician in the late '60s, Cohen sat on a New York City cafe patio and held up a sign that read "Kill Cool."
51) Cohen was later signed by John Hammond, who also signed Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bob Dylan.
52) The songs Waiting for a Miracle, Anthem and The Future were featured in the film Natural Born Killers.
53) Cohen addresses everyone as "friend."
54) During a European concert in the '70s, Cohen rode on stage on horseback. The animal spooked and reared. The audience thought the incident was planned.
55) In the 1990s, a classified ad ran in a Los Angeles paper seeking a partner who was half-Iggy Pop, half-Leonard Cohen. The musicians responded with a letter and a Polaroid photo of them together.
56) Cohen describes Adolf Eichman, notorious SS Nazi chief, as being of "average" intelligence in one of his poems.
57) A fanzine called Leonard Cohen Information Service, started in Germany, was in circulation for 10 years before it was discontinued in 1994.
58) Cohen's son, Adam, is also a singer and songwriter. He has released two albums.
59) Adam said that he unwittingly had a fleeting relationship with the daughter of his father's lover, Marianne Jensen. "When we realized each other's identity, we put a stop to it. It would have been just too far out!"
60) At 17, Cohen started his own country-western band called the Buckskin Boys.
61) In June 2001, the house beside Cohen's on the island of Hydra was on sale for 73.5 million drachmas (about $340,000).
62) Of one of his most famous songs, Suzanne, Cohen said: "I sang it to Judy Collins over the telephone. The publishing rights were lost in New York City but it is probably appropriate that I don't own this song. Just the other day, I heard some people singing it on a ship in the Caspian Sea."
63) Suzanne was a woman Cohen knew from Montreal. The wife of one of Cohen's friends, Suzanne Verdal, actually did live by the river and feed him tea and oranges.
64) Cohen's father, Nathan, died when he was nine. His mother, Masha, died in 1978.
65) His grandfather was a rabbi who wrote a 700-page thesaurus of Talmudic interpretations.
66) Cohen bought his first guitar in 1949.
67) Cohen had a brief stint as a vegetarian in the late '60s. He later took up yoga.
68) His thoughts on e-mail (he used to write poetry with pencils): "In the beginning I thought: this is a wonderful opportunity to say 'Hello' to friends once in a while. But when I check my mailbox in the morning, I then need up to two hours to take care of my correspondence. As with many other technical achievements, which promised an easier life in the beginning, the Internet too has turned into a burden. The same can be said of mobile phones."
69) Jennifer Warnes was the first artist to cover an entire album of Cohen songs.
70) At peace on Mount Baldy one morning in 1998, Cohen said: "Nine o-clock and we've had several lifetimes already today."
!!!
"