.I really like this perspective:
You're in for a treat with the ones you haven't yet heardI heard the original version and decided that such music was too beautiful to download and went out and bought some of his records.
.~ Lizzy
What started your Leonard Quest?
Sorry this is so long, but I feel I have to share it. Being a Canadian, I was always been more or less aware that there was a poet/songwriter from Montreal by the name of Leonard Cohen, but the only song I had every heard when I was very young was Suzanne. Then about 3 years ago, there was a documentary on TV here in Geneva about Leonard Cohen after his return from Mount Baldy. We watched it mostly because he is a fellow Canadian and when you live so far from home, you’ll watch anything to do with fellow Canadians. I was fascinated by him from this documentary, but I was not yet then in the habit of going out and buying CDs.
A couple of months later we were visiting Barcelona. We were in a large department store in the music section and I happened to come across one of Leonard’s CDs - “Greatest Hits”. I didn’t have any money with me so I asked my husband if I could buy it. He said “No, you can always get it some other time.” Needless to say, I was not very amused. Well, guess what turned up under the Christmas tree that year! My husband had bought the CD for me in the store in Barcelona when I wasn’t looking and saved it for a surprise. I guess he had no idea how drastically it was going to change my life!
I first played the CD on New Years Day - in my office (I had come in to work some overtime) - I was all alone, literally and figuratively. Frankly, in that period of my life I was going through a great depression. So, when I started listening to “Suzanne,” tears began to stream down my face and all I could think was “If I had only known…”. I was mourning all the years that I could have been enjoying this wonderful music and had been missing it.
Well, like others in this forum, it didn’t take long before I had bought every CD I could get my hands on. I would listen to them all day long at work - thank goodness my office mate was also a Canadian who was fond of Leonard’s music. I would and still do listen to them with my headphones on at night before going to sleep or in the morning in the dark before getting up.
As I mentioned, his music, then his poetry, then his books all combined to change my life profoundly. I started to write poetry again after many years of not writing. Then I started to play my guitar again - also after many years of not playing. I started reading other people’s poetry, then more serious books on literary criticism, then eventually enroled in Master’s program in cultural studies. Somewhere along the way I lost my depression and became a whole person again. I owe it all to Leonard.
He touched my perfect body with his mind. And that’s all I have to say on the subject.
A couple of months later we were visiting Barcelona. We were in a large department store in the music section and I happened to come across one of Leonard’s CDs - “Greatest Hits”. I didn’t have any money with me so I asked my husband if I could buy it. He said “No, you can always get it some other time.” Needless to say, I was not very amused. Well, guess what turned up under the Christmas tree that year! My husband had bought the CD for me in the store in Barcelona when I wasn’t looking and saved it for a surprise. I guess he had no idea how drastically it was going to change my life!
I first played the CD on New Years Day - in my office (I had come in to work some overtime) - I was all alone, literally and figuratively. Frankly, in that period of my life I was going through a great depression. So, when I started listening to “Suzanne,” tears began to stream down my face and all I could think was “If I had only known…”. I was mourning all the years that I could have been enjoying this wonderful music and had been missing it.
Well, like others in this forum, it didn’t take long before I had bought every CD I could get my hands on. I would listen to them all day long at work - thank goodness my office mate was also a Canadian who was fond of Leonard’s music. I would and still do listen to them with my headphones on at night before going to sleep or in the morning in the dark before getting up.
As I mentioned, his music, then his poetry, then his books all combined to change my life profoundly. I started to write poetry again after many years of not writing. Then I started to play my guitar again - also after many years of not playing. I started reading other people’s poetry, then more serious books on literary criticism, then eventually enroled in Master’s program in cultural studies. Somewhere along the way I lost my depression and became a whole person again. I owe it all to Leonard.
He touched my perfect body with his mind. And that’s all I have to say on the subject.
Dear Sherry ~
Thank you for sharing your incredible and awesome story. It was profoundly moving for me. More and more tears came to my eyes, as your story just kept deepening. You summed it all with your ending line from "Suzanne," the alpha and the omega for you. Leonard 'a profound influence in your life' doesn't even begin to touch it. Beginning with the perfectly-symbolic New Year's Day, not only lifted you up and out, but found the lost parts of you and made you whole, and then added to all that you are and have come to be. Of all the "How I discovered Leonard Cohen" stories I can recall, yours is the most holistic. Beautiful
. Beautiful .
Love,
Lizzy
Thank you for sharing your incredible and awesome story. It was profoundly moving for me. More and more tears came to my eyes, as your story just kept deepening. You summed it all with your ending line from "Suzanne," the alpha and the omega for you. Leonard 'a profound influence in your life' doesn't even begin to touch it. Beginning with the perfectly-symbolic New Year's Day, not only lifted you up and out, but found the lost parts of you and made you whole, and then added to all that you are and have come to be. Of all the "How I discovered Leonard Cohen" stories I can recall, yours is the most holistic. Beautiful
. Beautiful .Love,
Lizzy
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YankovicGretzky
- Posts: 309
- Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 4:22 am
- Contact:
Not sure how this happened, but I missed several of these postings here. Diane's, Smile's, and VAN's 
.
Smile ~ Such a long time, from such a young age, for you to have been listening to Leonard, with the same person ! The other kids being into, as you say, 'the chart thing' really did set you apart from them at 14!!! Being married at 16 would, for the most part, be a one-way ticket to marital disaster, but your mentality was obviously far beyond most 16-year-olds....and 34 years later, here you are......still with Cohen, still with your husband. Beautiful. I hope you're doing better with your health, Carol.
Love,
Lizzy
Diane ~
"What hooked me was Leonard’s deep, deliberate, resonant vocals, the depth of feeling, the honesty, the intensity."
"Deliberate" ~ such an important word to use when trying to describe Leonard's art in singing. It's the essential nuance I've been missing in my own attempts. "The depth of feeling, the honesty, the intensity" ~ such great choice of words, Diane .
Love,
Lizzy
VAN ~
" . . . and periodically would hear Cohen's name come up either as his influence or in Cave's covers but I never really invested in him further than that for a while. I don't know when for certian it began, about two or three years ago I picked up Ten New Songs. I started listening to him and fueled by some fucked up relationships and a desire to figure them out, by last summer I had bought everything he ever reocorded. . . and Cohen has influenced me dramatically in my attitudes toward life and art more than nearly anyone. I feel like, felt like, no, I have lived some of those songs. It's almost comical but Leonard Cohen to me is a sage, a prophet, an artist of the highest order."
I love, really love, seeing this kind of dramatic progression when someone discovers Leonard. Literally, from one end of a continuum, all the way to the absolute other end......and who would ever have dreamt that, that one name you "periodically would hear" would hold so much for you in your life. He has for me, also, "influenced me dramatically in my attitudes toward life and art more than nearly anyone." Thanks for sharing your story in the way you did.
~ Lizzy
.Smile ~ Such a long time, from such a young age, for you to have been listening to Leonard, with the same person
! The other kids being into, as you say, 'the chart thing' really did set you apart from them at 14!!! Being married at 16 would, for the most part, be a one-way ticket to marital disaster, but your mentality was obviously far beyond most 16-year-olds....and 34 years later, here you are......still with Cohen, still with your husband. Beautiful. I hope you're doing better with your health, Carol.Love,
Lizzy
Diane ~
"What hooked me was Leonard’s deep, deliberate, resonant vocals, the depth of feeling, the honesty, the intensity."
"Deliberate" ~ such an important word to use when trying to describe Leonard's art in singing. It's the essential nuance I've been missing in my own attempts. "The depth of feeling, the honesty, the intensity" ~ such great choice of words, Diane
.Love,
Lizzy
VAN ~
" . . . and periodically would hear Cohen's name come up either as his influence or in Cave's covers but I never really invested in him further than that for a while. I don't know when for certian it began, about two or three years ago I picked up Ten New Songs. I started listening to him and fueled by some fucked up relationships and a desire to figure them out, by last summer I had bought everything he ever reocorded. . . and Cohen has influenced me dramatically in my attitudes toward life and art more than nearly anyone. I feel like, felt like, no, I have lived some of those songs. It's almost comical but Leonard Cohen to me is a sage, a prophet, an artist of the highest order."
I love, really love, seeing this kind of dramatic progression when someone discovers Leonard. Literally, from one end of a continuum, all the way to the absolute other end......and who would ever have dreamt that, that one name you "periodically would hear" would hold so much for you in your life. He has for me, also, "influenced me dramatically in my attitudes toward life and art more than nearly anyone." Thanks for sharing your story in the way you did.
~ Lizzy
Hi Menni ~
I'm wondering if you're still around. Your only two posts were made on the same day, the day that you joined
. If you are still reading, which I hope you are, "Pump Up the Volume" is a film I saw a very long time ago, so long that I can't remember the context. Wasn't it shown on TV channels a lot, like maybe on Saturdays, to catch a particular, teenage crowd? My memory has it as being quite fast moving and somehow more frenetic in nature, and of course, 'loud' 
. Is any of that correct? It's a film I need to see again, as it obviously has brought people to Leonard. I'm glad you made it, even if it wasn't as a direct result of your parents' love for his music . I can only wonder how it must have been to have grown up with his music .
~ Lizzy
I'm wondering if you're still around. Your only two posts were made on the same day, the day that you joined
. If you are still reading, which I hope you are, "Pump Up the Volume" is a film I saw a very long time ago, so long that I can't remember the context. Wasn't it shown on TV channels a lot, like maybe on Saturdays, to catch a particular, teenage crowd? My memory has it as being quite fast moving and somehow more frenetic in nature, and of course, 'loud' . Is any of that correct? It's a film I need to see again, as it obviously has brought people to Leonard. I'm glad you made it, even if it wasn't as a direct result of your parents' love for his music . I can only wonder how it must have been to have grown up with his music .~ Lizzy
Dear O'Kane ~
I've welcomed you in your other posting, and then checked to see what other postings you have written.
I didn't expect to find such a poignant one. The album you inherited from your father and the circumstances that resulted in your inheritance have, as you know, a bitter irony.
A lovely gift that you received through him; his, and now your, love of Leonard's music. I'm sorry the album had to come to you in the way it did.
Thank you for sharing that.
~ Lizzy
I've welcomed you in your other posting, and then checked to see what other postings you have written.
I didn't expect to find such a poignant one. The album you inherited from your father and the circumstances that resulted in your inheritance have, as you know, a bitter irony.
A lovely gift that you received through him; his, and now your, love of Leonard's music. I'm sorry the album had to come to you in the way it did.
Thank you for sharing that.
~ Lizzy
Oh, geez....sorry about that O'Kane 
. I see it now, of course; but with there have been so many conflicts in that region, and the album you cited goes way back, so who was to know.....and you gave no personal information in your Profile. Imagine had the joke occurred to me, and I'd responded as such, and then it turned out to be the truth 
.Some time ago a man shared how he'd first heard Leonard [I'm a little 'dusty' on the details, so this might not be totally right, but close] in a tent in a desert in somewhere like Israel, via a woman who had the album. I dare say at least one soldier in Iraq is listening to Leonard. Hopefully, an American. Hopefully, an Iraqi.
Oh, well....now I can laugh
. [Sorry to spoil your joke . Bloody hell... ]~ Lizzy
It's interesting to me, too, O'Kane ~ particularly, the Ariel Sharon 'trivia' fact! Makes me want to pursue his views further. I wonder if they've ever met.
I'm wondering about the Chelsea Hotel thing, though. I was thinking that it was written in the Miami Beach area ~ or that general vicinity, maybe Palm Beach? at an outside[?] ~ maybe the pool area? ~ table at a hotel. Where did you hear that? It's striking me as totally new information. Can't always trust my memory, though
.
~ Lizzy
I'm wondering about the Chelsea Hotel thing, though. I was thinking that it was written in the Miami Beach area ~ or that general vicinity, maybe Palm Beach? at an outside[?] ~ maybe the pool area? ~ table at a hotel. Where did you hear that? It's striking me as totally new information. Can't always trust my memory, though
.~ Lizzy
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johnny7moons
- Posts: 121
- Joined: Mon May 26, 2003 12:59 am
I first heard Cohen when I was 14 or 15, living in a wet post-industrial town surrounded by endless wet fields, in the north of England where the sun never really comes up and people dress badly and care about football. In a fanzine I bought at a gig by Roy Harper (a local hero), I read a review of ‘I’m Your Man’, and I thought it sounded interesting so I borrowed a tape of ‘Greatest Hits’ from a friend’s big sister. The tape was third-generation at least, and so muffled it always sounded like it was playing in the next room, but I played it relentlessly, endlessly (I used to get a lift to school in the mornings with my Mum; I remember I used to insist on playing it in the car. Years later she told me that she once left it playing after she’d dropped me at school and was driving on to work, and it reduced her to tears. Over the years, she’s become a convert too). Anyway, a few days after I got my hands on that first tape, ‘Songs from the Life…’ screened on the BBC, and my fate was sealed.
The songs came like obscure glimpses into another world – a place I instantly felt I belonged, and felt a strange nostalgic longing for. The sky outside might be grey and drizzly, but inside a Leonard Cohen song it was dark, and the darkness was full of intrigue and hushed anticipation, as though the dim wraith-like shapes of the characters dancing slowly through the verses were celebrants assembling for some secret, difficult ritual on which the whole world depended. Blizzards billowed through the songs, and the air smelled of tropical flowers and the sea, and everything inessential was stripped away so there were only roads, tables, cups, mirrors, beds, and these so pure and so charged with meaning that electric currents arced off them and scorched the air. This was my place. I wanted my life to be the way a Leonard Cohen song sounded.
And, of course, I wanted to be Leonard. Leonard’s persona, so deliciously world-weary and wise, has always been a major part of the music’s fascination for me. Even when he’s not singing about himself, the songs are steeped in his presence; they’re houses he builds around himself and inhabits; his snail-shells. The songs offered the blessed relief of shedding my gawky, confused, frustrated teenage self for a few minutes and imagining I was the romantic, goatish, Armani-suited sage moving through these rarified landscapes, and speaking these strange, exciting words.
“You held on to me like a crucifix,” I'd intone along with Leonard, “as we went kneeling through the dark.” What did it mean to be held like a crucifix and go kneeling through the dark? How would it feel? I had no idea, but I knew it was of the gravest importance. The songs seemed to deal with experiences that were utterly mysterious to me, and far more intense and vibrant than anything I’d ever felt in the mundane ‘real’ world outside the songs. And listening I got to participate vicariously, even though I didn’t understand what I was participating in, and it was thrilling. That bastard ruined my life.
The songs came like obscure glimpses into another world – a place I instantly felt I belonged, and felt a strange nostalgic longing for. The sky outside might be grey and drizzly, but inside a Leonard Cohen song it was dark, and the darkness was full of intrigue and hushed anticipation, as though the dim wraith-like shapes of the characters dancing slowly through the verses were celebrants assembling for some secret, difficult ritual on which the whole world depended. Blizzards billowed through the songs, and the air smelled of tropical flowers and the sea, and everything inessential was stripped away so there were only roads, tables, cups, mirrors, beds, and these so pure and so charged with meaning that electric currents arced off them and scorched the air. This was my place. I wanted my life to be the way a Leonard Cohen song sounded.
And, of course, I wanted to be Leonard. Leonard’s persona, so deliciously world-weary and wise, has always been a major part of the music’s fascination for me. Even when he’s not singing about himself, the songs are steeped in his presence; they’re houses he builds around himself and inhabits; his snail-shells. The songs offered the blessed relief of shedding my gawky, confused, frustrated teenage self for a few minutes and imagining I was the romantic, goatish, Armani-suited sage moving through these rarified landscapes, and speaking these strange, exciting words.
“You held on to me like a crucifix,” I'd intone along with Leonard, “as we went kneeling through the dark.” What did it mean to be held like a crucifix and go kneeling through the dark? How would it feel? I had no idea, but I knew it was of the gravest importance. The songs seemed to deal with experiences that were utterly mysterious to me, and far more intense and vibrant than anything I’d ever felt in the mundane ‘real’ world outside the songs. And listening I got to participate vicariously, even though I didn’t understand what I was participating in, and it was thrilling. That bastard ruined my life.
Hi Johnny ~
Your description of Leonard's entrance into and impact on your life is captivating and beautiful. You take us there in all the nuances and details. You say he 'ruined' your life. What has become of all the things you've wished for, in the way of inhabiting his songs? Have you moved closer to any of the images? His work rescued the life of a 14- or 15-year-old, young man, giving it a different kind of significance; and transported his mother into another world, as well. A truly lovely accounting.
Did you submit a story for the Short Story Comp? If not, I hope you'll consider it next time around. This was so well done. I'm tempted to quote passages, but it would become too lengthy. You've posed some of a young man's questions that replicated those of a 28-year-old woman, as well.
Thanks for this description.
~ Lizzy
Your description of Leonard's entrance into and impact on your life is captivating and beautiful. You take us there in all the nuances and details. You say he 'ruined'
your life. What has become of all the things you've wished for, in the way of inhabiting his songs? Have you moved closer to any of the images? His work rescued the life of a 14- or 15-year-old, young man, giving it a different kind of significance; and transported his mother into another world, as well. A truly lovely accounting.Did you submit a story for the Short Story Comp? If not, I hope you'll consider it next time around. This was so well done. I'm tempted to quote passages, but it would become too lengthy. You've posed some of a young man's questions that replicated those of a 28-year-old woman, as well.
Thanks for this description.
~ Lizzy