Goodwin Leonard Cohen

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-405-5
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

An enigma, Leonard Norman Cohen was possibly the most improbable bohemian intellectual singer/songwriter in music history. He was the working-class hero, the people's poet, the suicidal lamenter of doom and a purveyor of popular songs. But the truth is even more complex. Throughout his life, there were juxtapositions of the most unlikely life choices and influences. To have fashioned a mishmash of ideas, styles and influences into a successful, long-lasting musical career is nothing short of amazing.
He blended secular, mystical, sexual and religious themes into ambiguous poetic tapestries and devised an intricate, unique musical style. He possessed a deep baritone voice that, although mesmerising, was sometimes in danger of sounding monotonous. Leonard was able to fuse these elements into a distinctive amalgam that somehow worked on many levels. He did not look the part, play the game or conform to any rules, but Leonard touched hearts and minds all over the world, while writing some remarkable songs, including 'Hallelujah' and 'Suzanne'.
Focusing equally on his popular early albums, the more experimental mid-period and his final, late-career renaissance, this book analyses and interprets every album and every individual song to shed light on the phenomenon of Leonard Cohen.

The Author
Opher Goodwin is the author of many books on rock music and science fiction and taught the first History of Rock Music classes in the UK. He was fortunate to spend the sixties in London, the epicentre for the underground explosion of rock music and culture, where he was able to see everyone from Pink Floyd, Hendrix and Cream to The Doors, Captain Beefheart and Roy Harper. He now lives happily in East Yorkshire, UK.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Goodwin, Opher

Leseproben

Introduction

Back in the heady days of 1967/1968, the Underground was at its peak. The music scene had exploded into a vast array of genres and styles – folk, country, psychedelic, jazz fusion, heavy metal, acid rock, prog rock, soul, electronic, avant-garde, experimental, blues, r&b, Indian, reggae, ethnic, brass and strings all competed for the ears of the discerning. Music was serious stuff: the expression of a generation, the voice of the 1960s revolution. Everything was mixed up in some glorious musical goulash. The festivals were garnished with the spice of diversity. A solo singer-songwriter like Roy Harper might sit next to a psychedelic band like Pink Floyd, followed by the heavy guitar of Jimi Hendrix, the blues of Pete Green’s Fleetwood Mac, the stringed pieces of the Third Ear Band and mad capers of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. They were all part of the rich collage of sound that fed the wide-open minds of the audience. Back then, we were tribal but unified, open-minded and receptive, always on the lookout for something new.

In 1968, the music industry was homing in on the burgeoning underground scene. CBS, like other labels, was trying to break into this lucrative new market. They came up with a snazzy ploy. They released a cut-price sampler album to highlight their latest acquisitions. These new underground acts were hoping to break through. They put a track from each of the acts together on one album called The Rock Machine Turns You On and put it out for 14 shillings and 11 pence – 75p. Apart from well-established acts like Bob Dylan, The Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel, it featured a number of new acts. We were introduced to the wonders of Roy Harper, Taj Mahal, Tim Rose, Moby Grape, Spirit, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Electric Flag and Blood Sweat and Tears. It provided us with an intriguing glimpse. I purchased a number of albums on the basis of those tantalising tracks.

One of the stand-out numbers was Leonard Cohen’s ‘Sisters Of Mercy’. I found myself instantly drawn to the song. Everything about it was different. The arrangement sounded simple, yet it was not even in the style of the new contemporary folk. The vocal was rich, full of melancholy, and felt ‘worldly’ and detached. Then there were the lyrics – poetic and enigmatic. Leonard was painting a story, but it was an intriguing, unique story that sucked me in. I already had a few of the albums highlighted, such as Roy Harper’s Come Out Fighting Ghenghis Smith, The Byrds’ Notorious Byrd Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme and Tim Rose’s Tim Rose. My first port of call was to purchase that Cohen album –The Songs Of Leonard Cohen. That was it – the start of a lifetime’s enthralling enjoyment.

So, who is this most unlikely of rock stars? There are probably as many views on Leonard as there are people. He’s certainly no working-class hero, no peoples’ poet, no suicidal lamenter of doom or purveyor of pop songs; the truth is much more complex than that. Indeed, throughout the whole of his life, there are the juxtapositions of the most unlikely life choices and influences. Leonard Norman Cohen is probably the most improbable, bohemian, intellectual singer-songwriter ever. Leonard himself, in his 2008 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, acknowledged this, wittily altering Jon Landau’s comment on Bruce Springsteen: ‘I have seen the future of rock ‘n’ roll and it is not Leonard Cohen.’ To have fashioned this mishmash of ideas, styles and influences into a successful, long-lasting career in the field of popular music is nothing short of bizarre. It should never have happened.

Born on 21 September 1934 in Montreal, Quebec, he was already ancient by 1968 when he first introduced himself to the vagaries of the rock business. In this time of acid-drenched psychedelic bands, earnest blues groups, heavy metal and progressive rock, youth ruled. The 1960s underground scene had become mainstream. Being over 30 meant being part of the ‘other side’. The 1960s were the time of protest, civil rights struggles, the Vietnam War and the raising of awareness of women’s rights and environmentalism. But it was also the time of acoustic folk and the age of the new singer-songwriter. Tastes had widened. Tolerance of novel sounds, along with a willingness to give it a chance, was at its peak. Leonard benefitted from this new receptiveness. An audience was open to something different. Leonard was certainly different.

In 1968, Leonard neither looked the part, acted the part, nor reflected the attitudes of the age; yet, in a way, he did. He brought an already rich bohemian life, a wealth of experience, an established body of work in the form of poetry and prose and a great hunger to succeed. His experience and different background provided him with a unique perspective.

He says he never intended to be a rock star; he just wanted to earn enough to support his meagre lifestyle. He was living an unconventional, creative life in Greece, which was quite idyllic, really, writing his poems and novels, but it wasn’t enough. He was not being sufficiently recognised, nor was he making any money or reaping success. Leonard craved more. He was ambitious. The opportunity to put some of his poetry to music appealed to him. He had tried it before and thought he could do it again. He needed to make a living. I doubt that he imagined it would go anywhere. He gave up his relationship, his friendships and his lifestyle to go in search of something more. He discovered an unlikely career.

The story started boringly enough. Leonard was normal. At school, he was a clarinet and ice hockey-playing unspectacular product of a middle-class Jewish family. His engineer father, who mainly worked in the family clothing business, had been badly injured in the First World War and suffered badly from his injuries. A key moment in Leonard’s life came in 1944 at the age of nine when his father died. The bereft boy wrote a verse, wrapped it in his father’s bow tie and buried it in the garden. This heartfelt totem was of significance; it combined poetry, emotion and mysticism with ritual.

At the age of 15, three other unusual events collided. He became smitten with the poetry of Garcia Lorca, saw the folk-blues singer Josh White and bought his first battered acoustic guitar for $12 from a pawn shop. Little did that 15-year-old boy guess how that might all come together.

Leonard was no longer normal. He possessed no desire to insert himself into the family business. In 1957, at the age of 23, The nascent poet not only had his first book of poems published but made his way to the top of Mount Royal, the mountain overlooking the city of Montreal, to dose himself with the psychedelic peyote cactus and seek visions. This obsession with the mystical, the nature of reality, hallucinogens and Zen Buddhism never left him. The quest remained central to his life and work.

As a person, a writer and a storyteller, Leonard was meticulous. Every detail was honed. This extended to his hair, clothes and even the Olivetti typewriter he used to write on. He crafted his appearance and persona to explain his choices and actions. He would have us believe that he chose to take himself off to live on a Greek island after seeing the suntan on a London bank clerk and that his long-term relationship with his Zen Master Roshi was founded over a bottle of cognac. Truth? Glib press statements? Fanciful asides? Or well- contrived stories? Who knows? It sure makes for a good story, though.

The roots of Leonard’s personality can be traced back to his upbringing. Right from the start, the family did not quite fit in. Speaking English and not Yiddish put them apart from the Jewish community and being Jewish meant they were treated with suspicion by the Christians. On top of that, Montreal was extremely Francophile, with a good proportion speaking French. Antisemitism was still rife. True outsiders. However, the family were highly successful, could even afford servants and were highly respected. The success of the clothing business, coupled with the lineage to his grandfather’s rabbinical status, saw to that. His father, Nathan, ran a conservative household based on smartness and order. Conscious of the image he was projecting, he always wore a suit complete with spats and often set off with a rather ostentatious monocle. Quite an image. This evidently had an impact on Leonard, who adopted this attention to detail into his own dress sense, work habits and lifestyle. He might have veered into an artistic bohemian life, but the base of meticulousness was always there.

Leonard’s Nanny also had a big influence on him, introducing him to the rituals of the Catholic Church. This fascination with religion – Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist and other mystical perspectives – became an important component in his various art forms. One of his many other interests was hypnotism and he supposedly became quite proficient at it, on one occasion inducing one of the maids to fully undress for him to inspect her body.

The serious, scholarly, intellectual aspects of Leonard’s persona probably date back to the tragic death of his father. In Jewish culture, at the age of nine, he became ‘the man’ of the house. A heavyweight made even heavier at the age of 13 when, following his Bar Mitzvah, he was officially recognised as a man. The responsibility became too much, and in 1953, he caused some consternation with his mother when he chose to move out and share rooms...