The weekly german magazine SPIEGEL (out on monday 9.4.) features an interview with Leonard Cohen (2 pages).
He started work on a new album ("It will take some time"), a tour is planned but not yet confirmed.
Cohen interview in DER SPIEGEL, Germany
Thanks for this information, Bernd... and welcome to the Forum 
!
Would you be offended as a newcomer, if I asked if you could provide a link to this... and... whether you know English well enough to provide a translation, as well? And... if you do, if you would consider doing that very thing? I know it takes time, and you may not have much of that, so that's an issue, too. From the little you've written here, it seems you know English very well.
If you can't, that's okay, too.
Thanks... and, again, welcome .
~ Lizzy
!Would you be offended as a newcomer, if I asked if you could provide a link to this... and... whether you know English well enough to provide a translation, as well? And... if you do, if you would consider doing that very thing? I know it takes time, and you may not have much of that, so that's an issue, too. From the little you've written here, it seems you know English very well.
If you can't, that's okay, too.
Thanks... and, again, welcome
.~ Lizzy
The interview isn´t available online (unless you buy the complete issue).
So here´s my translation (of course I take full responsibility for all the mistakes, inaccuracies and lack of clarity . . .)
Bernd
" Music was second choice "
SPIEGEL: Mr Cohen, you figure as a grandmaster of melancholy. During the seventies they said that your albums are so dark that they should be sold with razor blades enclosed. Now here you sit smiling on a bright spring day in your darkened London hotel suite. Have you found a recipe against melancholy?
Cohen:
I must disappoint you. If I had a recipe against melancholy I would sell it in bottles and would soon be an enormously rich man. But don´t worry: I am often melancholic, but I do not suffer any more from it. That doesn´t mean that I´m doing fine, nor does it mean that I´m not doing fine. But if it makes you happy: we could cut our arteries together.
SPIEGEL: Is Leonard Cohen´s humor underrated?
Cohen: Certainly not.
SPIEGEL: You sit here at the age of 72, look brilliant and your mood seems to be very well. You do not do justice to the stereotype image of the suicide-threatened, suffering artist. From where you take your new ease of being?
Cohen: I just do not think in such categories. I am not interested anymore in myself as a person for a long time. I have stopped that in the monastry. Now I could tell you some contrived ideas concerning humor, depressions and optimism in general; but this would be only a polite gesture to do you a favour, and would be far from the truth of my life.
SPIEGEL: Now your friend Anjani Thomas publishes the album "Blue Alert" in
Germany where she combines your words with folk and jazz melodies. You have never delivered songs for other artists. Was it strenuous to write for another person?
Cohen: It is complicated enough to come to terms with yourself, so it is a relief to take perspectives and attitudes in art that have nothing to do with yourself. In addition, I have not written these texts directly for Anjani. Rather she has selected a few things which I already had written. For that she skimmed through my archive. I have only made a few corrections here and there.
SPIEGEL: Can you describe your archive?
Cohen: I have a room with boxes which are chock-full with notebooks. Since some time they are put to order because I will give everything to a museum.
SPIEGEL: Are these your diaries?
Cohen: No, I write down a little bit each day, I always have one of the notebooks with me. But I would rather call it working notes. I never write directly about my life, I only write with the thought that maybe a poem or a song could come out of it. You won´t find any biography in my notebooks.
SPIEGEL: You always have called yourselves a slow writer. Is there a kind of routine that came up during the years and that accelerates the whole process?
Cohen: Unfortunately not. I do not write differently today than 40 years ago. The beginning is never the problem, but finding an end always is an ernormous obstacle. I have hundreds
- actually many hundreds - of half-finished and almost finished songs. The very thought of all these incomplete pieces doesn´t necessarily improve the mood I´m in.
SPIEGEL: Supposedly Bob Dylan has written down songs while driving in a taxi. What would be quick for you?
Cohen: Oh, the Dylan comparison. There are probably two schools: the quick and me. What he writes in passing takes an eternity for me. A quick song? Takes me a few years!
SPIEGEL: Nevertheless, you seem to become more and more productive. In just 40 years you have published only eleven studio albums. Three years ago your last work " Dear Heather "
appeared, your next own album will come out in autumn. In addition, last year you have finished a new book of poems - "Book of Longing"-, and a new extensive tour is planned for autumn. What keeps you going on?
Cohen: I have hardly begun with the new album. This will take some time. And, indeed, the tour is in the pipeline, but not yet confirmed. But you are right: to me it´s like working 24 hours a day.
SPIEGEL: In the beginning of the nineties you have left your work and moved for five years into a monastry close to Los Angeles. While you dealt with Zen lessons and meditations, your manager at that time cleared your accounts and swindled you out of millions, supposedly your savings. They said that you are broke. Is this correct?
Cohen: It is correct that I was surprised for a short time. But not too surprised. Not that I expected it, but, nevertheless, deception is one of the ancient stories of mankind. It was only the money the woman was after, there are worse things. The big horror still is pending, one day it may still overcome me.
SPIEGEL: Your legendary first three albums with classics like "Suzanne" or "Bird on the wire" are now reissued, digitally polished up and with bonus tracks. You began your musician's career relatively late at the age of your beginning thirties. Why?
Cohen: Music was, honestly said, only second choice. Besides, I come from a family enthusiastic about music. My father, a businessman, was a passionate amateur singer. He dreadfully crowed with us at home almost daily, but with great passion. My mother began singing a song now and then, she had a remarkable voice. At that time I have played in a school-band droning radio-hits. But I wanted to become an author. For my first book of poems I got some good reviews. The problem was that it was bought by too few.
SPIEGEL: If you had succeeded in writing a bestseller in your younger years your musician's career would never had taken place?
Cohen: Exactly! I simply wanted to earn more money. Therefore I began to write songs. If I had landed a bestseller, music would have remained a hobby.
SPIEGEL: But you have won a scholarship for your poems?
Cohen: I was 25 and got no money, but they financed a trip to Europe. I saw the old metropoles and was inspired. Rome was a dream, in Athens I felt at home. I travelled to the island Hydra, I liked it so well that I stayed there for seven years. From an inheritance my grandmother left me I bought a small house, enjoyed the heavenly life and wrote. " Bird on the Wire " and many early songs have originated there on the beach. I still own the house. My children cling to it and go there regularly.
SPIEGEL: Did you have any singing lessons?
Cohen: No. I know what you are after. I am no big singer, a little gloomily and a hardly able of variations. But for my songs my voice fits quite well, this is enough.
SPIEGEL: May we put to you a few trivial questions?
Cohen: O please, absolutely. I must always say such profound things. Nobody wants to know what my favorite colour is or my favorite meal.
SPIEGEL: How have you ended up as an actor in the tv-series "Miami Vice"?
Cohen: A marvellous pleasure. I do not know how the producers came on me, but when the inquiry came I accepted immediately. The series made no difference to me, but my children loved "Miami Vice", and I thought, nevertheless, it would be a great surprise if I appear there alongside the principal character Don Johnson. The shooting was rather catastrophical. I should play an Interpol boss, but unfortunately I do not have the slightest talent for acting and ruined almost every scene. At the end my role was almost completely deleted. But my children were very enthusiatic about my remaining short appearance.
SPIEGEL: And is anecdote correct that you and Iggy Pop answered a personal ad of a young woman who looked for a " man with the mind of Leonard Cohen and the body of Iggy Pop"?
Cohen: I visited Iggy Pop at that time in the studio because I am friends with his producer Don Was. Somebody showed us this press clipping with the personal ad, and we decided to write to the advertiser. We wrote a polite letter that we could meet sometimes, both signed and placed my telephone number under it. As a proof of the fact that this is no joke we added a photo of both of us. The girl immediately answered. Unfortunately, her only interest was in leading many interesting and profound conversations.
SPIEGEL: Do you still spend time in the monastry on Mount Baldy with your old teacher?
Cohen: Rarely, my education is finished. But I´m still in close contact with my teacher Roshi. He will be 100 years old in a couple of weeks and he still is in pretty good shape. I would like to become as old as he. We will celebrate his birthday together, eat well and drink one or two little glasses.
Interview: Christoph Dallach
spiegel 15/2007
So here´s my translation (of course I take full responsibility for all the mistakes, inaccuracies and lack of clarity . . .)
Bernd
" Music was second choice "
SPIEGEL: Mr Cohen, you figure as a grandmaster of melancholy. During the seventies they said that your albums are so dark that they should be sold with razor blades enclosed. Now here you sit smiling on a bright spring day in your darkened London hotel suite. Have you found a recipe against melancholy?
Cohen:
I must disappoint you. If I had a recipe against melancholy I would sell it in bottles and would soon be an enormously rich man. But don´t worry: I am often melancholic, but I do not suffer any more from it. That doesn´t mean that I´m doing fine, nor does it mean that I´m not doing fine. But if it makes you happy: we could cut our arteries together.
SPIEGEL: Is Leonard Cohen´s humor underrated?
Cohen: Certainly not.
SPIEGEL: You sit here at the age of 72, look brilliant and your mood seems to be very well. You do not do justice to the stereotype image of the suicide-threatened, suffering artist. From where you take your new ease of being?
Cohen: I just do not think in such categories. I am not interested anymore in myself as a person for a long time. I have stopped that in the monastry. Now I could tell you some contrived ideas concerning humor, depressions and optimism in general; but this would be only a polite gesture to do you a favour, and would be far from the truth of my life.
SPIEGEL: Now your friend Anjani Thomas publishes the album "Blue Alert" in
Germany where she combines your words with folk and jazz melodies. You have never delivered songs for other artists. Was it strenuous to write for another person?
Cohen: It is complicated enough to come to terms with yourself, so it is a relief to take perspectives and attitudes in art that have nothing to do with yourself. In addition, I have not written these texts directly for Anjani. Rather she has selected a few things which I already had written. For that she skimmed through my archive. I have only made a few corrections here and there.
SPIEGEL: Can you describe your archive?
Cohen: I have a room with boxes which are chock-full with notebooks. Since some time they are put to order because I will give everything to a museum.
SPIEGEL: Are these your diaries?
Cohen: No, I write down a little bit each day, I always have one of the notebooks with me. But I would rather call it working notes. I never write directly about my life, I only write with the thought that maybe a poem or a song could come out of it. You won´t find any biography in my notebooks.
SPIEGEL: You always have called yourselves a slow writer. Is there a kind of routine that came up during the years and that accelerates the whole process?
Cohen: Unfortunately not. I do not write differently today than 40 years ago. The beginning is never the problem, but finding an end always is an ernormous obstacle. I have hundreds
- actually many hundreds - of half-finished and almost finished songs. The very thought of all these incomplete pieces doesn´t necessarily improve the mood I´m in.
SPIEGEL: Supposedly Bob Dylan has written down songs while driving in a taxi. What would be quick for you?
Cohen: Oh, the Dylan comparison. There are probably two schools: the quick and me. What he writes in passing takes an eternity for me. A quick song? Takes me a few years!
SPIEGEL: Nevertheless, you seem to become more and more productive. In just 40 years you have published only eleven studio albums. Three years ago your last work " Dear Heather "
appeared, your next own album will come out in autumn. In addition, last year you have finished a new book of poems - "Book of Longing"-, and a new extensive tour is planned for autumn. What keeps you going on?
Cohen: I have hardly begun with the new album. This will take some time. And, indeed, the tour is in the pipeline, but not yet confirmed. But you are right: to me it´s like working 24 hours a day.
SPIEGEL: In the beginning of the nineties you have left your work and moved for five years into a monastry close to Los Angeles. While you dealt with Zen lessons and meditations, your manager at that time cleared your accounts and swindled you out of millions, supposedly your savings. They said that you are broke. Is this correct?
Cohen: It is correct that I was surprised for a short time. But not too surprised. Not that I expected it, but, nevertheless, deception is one of the ancient stories of mankind. It was only the money the woman was after, there are worse things. The big horror still is pending, one day it may still overcome me.
SPIEGEL: Your legendary first three albums with classics like "Suzanne" or "Bird on the wire" are now reissued, digitally polished up and with bonus tracks. You began your musician's career relatively late at the age of your beginning thirties. Why?
Cohen: Music was, honestly said, only second choice. Besides, I come from a family enthusiastic about music. My father, a businessman, was a passionate amateur singer. He dreadfully crowed with us at home almost daily, but with great passion. My mother began singing a song now and then, she had a remarkable voice. At that time I have played in a school-band droning radio-hits. But I wanted to become an author. For my first book of poems I got some good reviews. The problem was that it was bought by too few.
SPIEGEL: If you had succeeded in writing a bestseller in your younger years your musician's career would never had taken place?
Cohen: Exactly! I simply wanted to earn more money. Therefore I began to write songs. If I had landed a bestseller, music would have remained a hobby.
SPIEGEL: But you have won a scholarship for your poems?
Cohen: I was 25 and got no money, but they financed a trip to Europe. I saw the old metropoles and was inspired. Rome was a dream, in Athens I felt at home. I travelled to the island Hydra, I liked it so well that I stayed there for seven years. From an inheritance my grandmother left me I bought a small house, enjoyed the heavenly life and wrote. " Bird on the Wire " and many early songs have originated there on the beach. I still own the house. My children cling to it and go there regularly.
SPIEGEL: Did you have any singing lessons?
Cohen: No. I know what you are after. I am no big singer, a little gloomily and a hardly able of variations. But for my songs my voice fits quite well, this is enough.
SPIEGEL: May we put to you a few trivial questions?
Cohen: O please, absolutely. I must always say such profound things. Nobody wants to know what my favorite colour is or my favorite meal.
SPIEGEL: How have you ended up as an actor in the tv-series "Miami Vice"?
Cohen: A marvellous pleasure. I do not know how the producers came on me, but when the inquiry came I accepted immediately. The series made no difference to me, but my children loved "Miami Vice", and I thought, nevertheless, it would be a great surprise if I appear there alongside the principal character Don Johnson. The shooting was rather catastrophical. I should play an Interpol boss, but unfortunately I do not have the slightest talent for acting and ruined almost every scene. At the end my role was almost completely deleted. But my children were very enthusiatic about my remaining short appearance.
SPIEGEL: And is anecdote correct that you and Iggy Pop answered a personal ad of a young woman who looked for a " man with the mind of Leonard Cohen and the body of Iggy Pop"?
Cohen: I visited Iggy Pop at that time in the studio because I am friends with his producer Don Was. Somebody showed us this press clipping with the personal ad, and we decided to write to the advertiser. We wrote a polite letter that we could meet sometimes, both signed and placed my telephone number under it. As a proof of the fact that this is no joke we added a photo of both of us. The girl immediately answered. Unfortunately, her only interest was in leading many interesting and profound conversations.
SPIEGEL: Do you still spend time in the monastry on Mount Baldy with your old teacher?
Cohen: Rarely, my education is finished. But I´m still in close contact with my teacher Roshi. He will be 100 years old in a couple of weeks and he still is in pretty good shape. I would like to become as old as he. We will celebrate his birthday together, eat well and drink one or two little glasses.
Interview: Christoph Dallach
spiegel 15/2007
THIS was worth the price of admissionBut if it makes you happy: we could cut our arteries together.
SPIEGEL: Is Leonard Cohen´s humor underrated?
Cohen: Certainly not.
!! There's just noting like Leonard being Leonard. Thank you SOOOO much for your translation of this article, Bernd . This is another one of those times that I'm so GLAD I asked!!The very thought of all these incomplete pieces doesn´t necessarily improve the mood I´m in.
SPIEGEL: Supposedly Bob Dylan has written down songs while driving in a taxi. What would be quick for you?
Cohen: Oh, the Dylan comparison. There are probably two schools: the quick and me.
I don't have time to quote every excerpt where I [literally] laughed out loud, but this interview is delightfully filled with Leonard's great sense of humour and wit.
Thank you, again, SO much, Bernd. You've done exceedingly well in this translation.
Truly wonderful reading this. Thanks! I was about to click out when I saw you'd answered... so, now, I really must go!
~ Lizzy
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The article comes with three photographs; two recent ones (Cohen and Arjani in concert, Warsaw (march 31), Cohen smoking a cigarette) and an old black & white picture from 1974.
In the interview Cohen says "Bird on the wire", not "Bird on a wire" (but that
doesn´t mean he really did say "the").
Bernd
In the interview Cohen says "Bird on the wire", not "Bird on a wire" (but that
doesn´t mean he really did say "the").
Bernd
Hi Gingermop ~
You're right that we didn't jump on it. I think it's probably because we know how uncertain it remains. For so long here, we wished out loud that Leonard might tour again one day. As newcomers came along and asked, we kindly and very sympathetically let them know that we, too, wish Leonard would do so; however, it's just not to be. He has no plans of touring, again.
Then, things changed. Whether or not it relates to his loss of savings via Kelley, we can't say for absolute sure; however, with Blue Alert, the dream-come-true words were heard round the world and we rejoiced that he was doing some very limited things. He appeared in Toronto, and then he did the promotional concerts.
It also seemed that there were rather substantive murmurings that Leonard would tour with his new album. He was under different management at that point, however; and it seems that particular management company had, perhaps, more stringent expectations of Leonard's side of the deal. He has since changed management, and what we've been hearing most is that he doesn't know whether or not he'll tour... however, it has come to feel more weighted on the 'won't' than on the 'will' side. There's a great deal of uncertainty around the consideration. So, Leonard's commenting that:
]. Second, our collective heart probably skipped a beat when we saw "the tour is in the pipeline," our heart took equal note of Leonard's immediate qualifier that it's "not yet confirmed." So, we know that things haven't really changed as to any level of certainty of this; but we can rely on its uncertainty.
So, at this moment, our hopes remain high... but we don't feel as compelled to comment as we would have when we first heard of the possibility. The reality is that the concert could remain in the pipeline... though we hope it comes to light. We're just more accustomed to reverting to hope mode. If you stay around, you'll see what I mean. We're just 'holding' right now... holding in hope. There's a lot of time between now and when the album will be finished and released.
That's my best explanation for you . If I've wrongly expressed any of the salient points of this unknowing process, someone will clarify it for us [you and me] 
.
~ Lizzy
You're right that we didn't jump on it. I think it's probably because we know how uncertain it remains. For so long here, we wished out loud that Leonard might tour again one day. As newcomers came along and asked, we kindly and very sympathetically let them know that we, too, wish Leonard would do so; however, it's just not to be. He has no plans of touring, again.
Then, things changed. Whether or not it relates to his loss of savings via Kelley, we can't say for absolute sure; however, with Blue Alert, the dream-come-true words were heard round the world and we rejoiced that he was doing some very limited things. He appeared in Toronto, and then he did the promotional concerts.
It also seemed that there were rather substantive murmurings that Leonard would tour with his new album. He was under different management at that point, however; and it seems that particular management company had, perhaps, more stringent expectations of Leonard's side of the deal. He has since changed management, and what we've been hearing most is that he doesn't know whether or not he'll tour... however, it has come to feel more weighted on the 'won't' than on the 'will' side. There's a great deal of uncertainty around the consideration. So, Leonard's commenting that:
... does two things. It first lets us know that the album's appearance could be a long way off, anyway. There have been delays with the others and with his book. So, even though it's hoped, maybe even speculated, that the album will be out by the end of this year, we know that that's not necessarily so [we're patient waiters"I have hardly begun with the new album. This will take some time. And, indeed, the tour is in the pipeline, but not yet confirmed."
]. Second, our collective heart probably skipped a beat when we saw "the tour is in the pipeline," our heart took equal note of Leonard's immediate qualifier that it's "not yet confirmed." So, we know that things haven't really changed as to any level of certainty of this; but we can rely on its uncertainty.So, at this moment, our hopes remain high... but we don't feel as compelled to comment as we would have when we first heard of the possibility. The reality is that the concert could remain in the pipeline... though we hope it comes to light. We're just more accustomed to reverting to hope mode. If you stay around, you'll see what I mean. We're just 'holding' right now... holding in hope. There's a lot of time between now and when the album will be finished and released.
That's my best explanation for you
. If I've wrongly expressed any of the salient points of this unknowing process, someone will clarify it for us [you and me] .~ Lizzy
Hi Lizzy
Thanks for the response. Your love of analysis when it comes to words/statements leaves me in no doubt as to why you ended up a Leonard fan!
I'm not as much of a "newcomer" as you might think, I've lurked here for a couple of years despite never posting until recently. Before then, I had a friend who was crazy about Leonard (and often kept me abreast about his music, news etc.) but who sadly died last year.
For the record, I think Leonard will tour again. I don't expect big venues, long treks around the globe for him or a long set, but I just have a hunch that he will.
Best,
Gina
Thanks for the response. Your love of analysis when it comes to words/statements leaves me in no doubt as to why you ended up a Leonard fan!
I'm not as much of a "newcomer" as you might think, I've lurked here for a couple of years despite never posting until recently. Before then, I had a friend who was crazy about Leonard (and often kept me abreast about his music, news etc.) but who sadly died last year.
For the record, I think Leonard will tour again. I don't expect big venues, long treks around the globe for him or a long set, but I just have a hunch that he will.
Best,
Gina