JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Leonard Cohen RIP

Just read the news that Leonard Cohen has died.

I feel heartbroken.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/leonard-cohen-dead-at-82-w449792

Donna

What a great song “Hallelujah” is. So simple, but great.

John

Dammit!!!

For some odd reason, I felt in the last few days, that Mr. Cohen would be next...

Here is kdlang singing a song of his that he didn't even know what it meant until he heard her doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAtc-aj7CV4

Godspeed...

Thank you, whatever gods may be, for letting Mr. Cohen grace us with his presence.

Midnite

P.S.

When I was trying to learn how to perform in public, and would lose the audience, I knew enough to pull "Suzanne" out and sing it.....that song always brought the audience back onto my side...

And got me laid a few times...Whoops, did I just say that out loud???:-)

Hey JLS...

You & I were responding at the same time....

....Yeap....

Midnite

RIP!I found Cohen's music only a couple years ago but so glad i did.John,Hallelujah may be simple music wise but the lyrics are pretty strong i think.And we only get the condensed version,there were more verses to it.And i just want to punch people who sing this song as a spiritual song in the throat!They just don't get it. Mike

Here's Mr.Cohen...

The song has 74 verses, so everyone has to condense it,

even Mr. Cohen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

Midnite

Bird on a wire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPUu-rMpWA

Midnite

Suzanne...

Mr. Cohen & Ms. Collins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oL1AJdA7aI

hey Bob,74 verses,i lose interest after 4,i guess that's why i'm no LC.Bird On A Wire was my first Cohen song i heard many years ago but didn't know he wrote it but i thought Joe Cocker did it really well.Mike

I lost a friend today....

Midnite

74 verses and counting....It was one of those songs where Mr. Cohen "caught" the melody, and couldn't stop writing and writing.

It's about love & f%cking & falling & finding Truth...

The last verse is:

I did my best
it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel
so I learned to touch.
I never tried to fool ya.....

Midnite

I am so sad over hearing that Leonard Cohen has passed.

He was my Dylan. I know his first eight or nine albums by heart, and learned more about songwriting from listening and studying his work than from anyone else or any songwriting book or class. He was a constant editor, as Midnite has mentioned, and some of his songs saw hundreds of iterations before seeing the light of day.

Like Prince and Van Morrison, in Leonard Cohen's songs, spiritual and sensual weren't strange bedfellows. The song "Hallelujah" is typical of much of his work that can find "The Sacred" in "the everyday"..and he was doing that from the beginning, with great songs like "Suzanne" --with lines such as "there are heroes in the seaweed" --it might sound like a silly line, but..next time you feel really insignificant, just say that line to yourself, and try to experience it..

and my favorite bit of song-poetry, also from "Suzanne":

Jesus was a sailor
when he walked upon the water
and he spent a long time watching
from his lonely wooden tower
and when he knew for certain
only drowning men could see him
he said All men will be sailors then
until the sea shall free them


His dark humor was always prescient and on the money--Oliver Stone knew that when he used LC's songs in "Natural Born Killers."

Cohen's love songs were never just sweet, but always had a bit of bite, and many were in the second person, like

take this longing from my tongue
all the useless things these hands have done
let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one you love

In the later part of his life, he went off and joined a Buddhist Monastery, while still a devoted Jew..spent several years of his life grounding himself in this way..some of his best interviews were conducted while he lived there--several are on youtube..

I loved Leonard Cohen, and I loved his music..

Anyway..time to be sad for awhile..

Mike

"Your Famous Blue Raincoat"....

Midnite

if there'd been a Nobel prize for beautifully crafted lyrics that spoke to the soul's deepest longing and tenderness, Leonard would have been a more than worthy contender.

That verse from 'Suzanne' still - as always - gives me goosebumps, as does 'Hallelujah'.

Donna

Let me add to the mix.

I never liked LC in the early years. "Far too depressing", I would say, and I basically ignored all he did.

Then one day I was watching a Canadian movie, Atom Egoyan's 1994 film Exotica, and a song was played. It was a familiar voice but I could not place it, but the lyric wowed me. I stayed until the last credits rolled (not my normal behaviour) to make sure I could learn who sang "Everybody Knows"

Been a fan since. I have everything he has done, and just a week or so bought his new release "You Want It Darker"

I am also glad that just this past Sunday, our band did a gig, and we played Halleluja--well 5 verses of it

His music was used in movies such as McCabe and Mrs Miller, which I did not see ubntil a year or two ago. It had Sisters of Mercy on it...which is one of my favourites. Shrek had a cover of Halleluja by John Cale that was pretty good too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kl1QXNpz30

My wife and I spent a month or so toodling around Europe a few years back, and we bought a European compilation of LC's work that IMO is the best collection of his pre 2000 works that you can find.

His last few Cds...10 New Songs (man that was 2001 I see), Dear Heather, Old Ideas, Popular Problems and his last You Want It Darker were all eagerly snapped up by me.

So thank you Leonard Cohen. You have enriched my life with your music and words. RIP

Hi Donna and fellow posters:

A sad day indeed. Mr. Cohen was a talent among talents... and will be sorely missed. Now for the good part... his music will "live on" to inspire us, entertain us... and bore us if all 72 verses are sung in the same performance... LOL!

His passing certainly gets my attention 'cause old age "creepeth" and there is little or nothing I can do about it except to write, record, re-write, re-record, sing, devour throat lozenges... and hope to Heaven somebody who counts will do a cover or two of my work. (Looking for chump change for the widow and orphans!)

RIP Mr. Cohen... you are already missed.

Damn, only just heard this. Such a shame.

Although this post is from 2016 when Mr. Cohen passed away but I saw this thread just now and couldn't stop myself from commenting. I was and am a big fan of him and I still feel his death as a personal loss for me. I love his Death of a Ladies' Man, Old Ideas, The Future, I'm Your Man and Popular Problems.

I'm such a huge fan of Leonard Cohen and yes, 'Suzanne' is my all-time favorite. His death has created a void that I think can't be filled.

Yes, all those you've mentioned above and 'Suzanne' are my favorites.

I never knew about him much, but as any songwriter should i started listening to him. I love Chelsea Hotel

When I saw this thread appear again... I thought to myself, "Were there two Leonard Cohen's?"... and then I realized a new member had found it. Welcome to JPF, Donald. I think you are going to enjoy it here.

A tribute from the heart is always welcome. As a great fan of “Hallelujah”, I would like to add that whenever I hear this song (and I hear it a lot), I feel so sad that Leonard Cohen's is no longer among us. BTW, I'm also new here.

Welcome to the site Morris.

I always associate Leonards's “Hallelujah” with KD, best rendition I reckon is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--FrDSx-21k , in Oz of course. Always makes the heart bleed.

cheers, niteshift

PS - See! Nerdy keys players can go places ( see near the end )

I would not say Cohen's music was simple, the average four chord guitarist

Would not be able to sort out the chords unless he or she had the manuscript

in front of them

Skiffle is Simple, like most old traditional Songs Its an art making a song sound

simplistic, the secret is PROSODY Words and Music married together in the state

of complete SIMPLISTIC PERFECTION ----that was what Leonard Cohen left us

I cannot get enough of kd singing this song. I find myself seeking her out every few weeks. Chokes me up every time. Her modesty is almost as great as her voice.

The Senate voted last week to repeal the measure, as Republicans who control the Legislature continue to defy doctors, nurses, hospitals, ...

Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist.

I stumbled into National Public Radio in Tucson, Arizona, late one night searching the radio dial.
Suddenly I was listening to Aaron Copland's "Grand Canyon Suite".
And then, "Suzanne takes you down..." telling of how she "fed me tea and oranges" in that 'you-can't-ignore' voice.
Poetry on that level, delivered like spoken word, made an instant fan.
The heavy whimsy of "First we take Manhattan; then we take Berlin" showed that the poet was no one-hit wonder but a stylist of Lyrical majesty.
Explorers of Lyric and Melody should find their way to and through Leonard Cohen, a legacy for all time, fresh today, as ever.
I often say, "If you want to give the gift of music, give..." and cite some 'album' I am familiar with.
(For the very young, an 'album' was a vinyl record with eight or ten Songs on it, and sometimes, not always, every Song on it could satisfy one's sense of entertainment value.)
For Leonard Cohen, I think I'd have to know a person really well to make my, "If you want to give the gift of music.." speech. I'd risk it though. I think Leonard created art with powers to appeal to the psyche of any listener. Yes, all these years later (2022, on the cusp of 2023), a visit with some Cohen work can stir the Song-Writer in you, satisfy the desire for Lyrical, Melodic vocalization you seek, in ways you didn't know it could. Write like that. Compose, like that.

Cheyenne, you are right on with this statement. It is what Cohen strived for in his writing and shows clearly in his wotk

"the secret is PROSODY Words and Music married together in the state

of complete SIMPLISTIC PERFECTION ----that was what Leonard Cohen left us" Cheyenne