leonardcohenforum.com

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And you are Elena of Romania. (Parker)

Welcome to the forum, Elena!

hi elena--
Just wrote a nice long post to you and then by some accident lost it.
Briefly then, Leonard has always made me feel as if I was not alone.

We have his music to beautify our loneliness.

A beautiful way of looking at this.


~ Lizzy

Hi Elena. They are not my words, but Dorothy Parker's. I swapped Elena for 'Marie', the original name, Marie/Maria being a queen of yours, so Laura, another Romanian Leonard fan who comes here, told me. I like the happy words, and they also seemed to fit what you wrote in your first post in the thread. Like you, we all believe that Leonard wrote all his words for us personally . Enjoy your time here!

Diane

Dear Elena,

Welcome to the Forum!

Your name is very similar to my daughter, Elana (an Israeli name, which I learned about when I was living in Israel on a Kibbutz in '72-'73, shortly before LC fought in the Yom Kippur War). The name is the female form of "tree," a word which has spiritual significance in Israel, re both the "tree of life," and the reclamation of the earth (much of Israel is desert).

Anyway, Leonard gives voice to feelings and longings which I have always carried, but no one really expresses them with as much depth (and wit) as he does. Bono put it well in "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man," the documentary that came out last year, when he noted that Leonard gets us at all stages of our lives. In his early work, he caught my romantic longing (although, at the time, I needed to experience him through a Collins-filter) with "Suzanne," "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," and "Sisters of Mercy." I still find his description of shame-based interpersonal distancing which he described in the latter song timeless - "Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control/It begins with your family, and soon it comes round to your soul/Well I've been where you're hanging I think I can see how you're pinned/When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned."

BTW, I too found great resonance with "My Secret Life."

Also, I find Leonard fearless in his writing. Somehow, he's able to give voice to particular experiences which rise to the level of universality. In the recent dvd, "Leonard Cohen 1934-1977 Under Review," one of the critics mentions that LC is not primarily concerned with entertaining, but engaging, that somehow he's able to connect intimately with listeners on the other side of the speakers.

Enough for now.....nearly 2:00 A.M.

Fred

Leonard and I entertain each other.

(But I'm just being cute; I don't mean the same meaning for that word bidirectionally.)

I have been thinking about your question, and I'm not sure how I want to answer, though I think that first cute sentence is pretty good. He's provided me with material to share (or show off, depending on how you look at it). If not for him, I probably wouldn't have met and become friends with others who post here. I think I've used him to help shape my thinking, but that's hard to know for sure just yet. Maybe I'd still be myself without him, plus I'm still working on it. He's helped me see beauty in things that might have not seemed beautiful beforehand. I think it's easy to write about a beautiful scene in nature with flowers and rainbows and sunbeams through forest canopy and show others how it's beautiful. But Leonard has shown us things like garbage and mechanical corsets and war and said, "Hey, there's beauty there too. Don't miss it. Let's make it beautiful."

Hi Elena,

it's fine to learn that you've made quite the same experience as I did.

First, when I heard of him, in the early 80s, there was just "The Partisan" and "Suzanne", and I reckoned him as another Bob Dylan. Then, long time after, I became aware of both the depth and the hidden irony of his songs, and was especially impressed by the ones that spoke of transcendency in a very unobtrusive way, like The Guests, The Window, Lover Lover Lover. One might not believe it (and I'm not sure if Leonard himself would like to hear it), but he has become one of the most important guides to an up-to-date spirituality to me.

Besides that, I got to appreciate the wisdom speaking from his songs. For instance, when I had a deep crisis in putting forth my thesis, it was that "you lose your grip, / and then you slip / into the masterpiece" from "A Thousand Kisses Deep" that helped me carry through.

Yes, Leonard has changed my life, too. I owe him a lot.

The melancholy melodies, the melancholy but often at the same time hilarious lyrics, the whole completed by sparkling bits of sounds in the background; all together Leonard Cohen has a calming, reassuring and,in a way, spiritually uplifting impact. And it does beautify, or at least make bearable, being alone.

At least that's how it works for me.

Works the same way for me too Stranger its a perfect way to escape, whatever mood
I,m in, Cohen fits all . Since the first song I heard "Nancy" back in 1987 I was hooked
Just listen to this song a friend asked and I'm still listening ( long song eh... )

LC
The only drug that really works
and put the mind to ease
the only prayer you can believe
when you are on your knees.......