Friday, November 11, 2016

Leonard Cohen 1934- 2017 RIP

I first saw Leonard Cohen play at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967. Joni Mitchell, in an orange striped mini-dress, led him out.He looked like a rabbinical student. He played 'Suzanne' as I remember, and I vowed to buy it as soon as it was out. I have bought virtually everything he has done. I am not one to complain about Bob Dylan's getting the Nobel, but Cohen was the best we had. He was a Zen Buddhist Jew with Catholic tendencies, and virtually the only person in the music world I considered to be a wise man. Despite the darkness and mortality of much of his work, he was also very funny.
When Libby looked up that first performance, she said my memory was wrong. I thought that Joni had been wearing a horizontal striped mini-dress; it was diagonally striped.
Here is one of my favorites; also one of the world's best bar songs, though it is a lot more than that...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Listening to his last albums always made me feel uneasy. Leonard Cohen was saying good-bye through his poetry. Luckily for us - and generations to come - his texts and music will live on for eternity.

Trent Kleppen said...

An actual giant ... This song alone should have won the Nobel Prize: https://youtu.be/FqVvNpcX5HQ

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that.
Jim Cornelius
www.frontierpartisans.com