Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, CC (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a poet, novelist, and singer-songwriter. His musical career has largely overshadowed his prior work as a poet and novelist, although he has continued to publish poetry sporadically after his breakthrough in the music industry.

Biography

Cohen was born to a middle-class Jewish family in 1934 in Montreal, Quebec. He grew up in Westmount on Montreal island. His father worked as a tailor. They made a proud claim to descent from the priestly Kohanim: "I had a very Messianic childhood," he told Richard Goldstein in 1967, "I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest." http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/craw375.htm As a teenager he learned to play the guitar and formed a country-folk group called the Buckskin Boys.

Related Topics:
Jew - 1934 - Montreal - Quebec - Westmount - Kohanim - Aaron - Guitar - Country

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In 1951, Cohen enrolled at McGill University, where he was President of the debating union and pursued a career as a poet. His first poetry book, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published while he was an undergraduate. The Spice-Box of Earth (1961) made him well-known in poetry circles, especially in his native Canada.

Related Topics:
1951 - McGill University - Debating union - Poetry - Let Us Compare Mythologies - 1956 - The Spice-Box of Earth - 1961 - Canada

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Cohen applied a strong work ethic to his early and keen literary ambitions. He wrote poetry and fiction through much of the 1960s, and preferred even as a young man to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances. After moving to Hydra, a Greek island, Cohen published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). The Favourite Game is an autobiographical bildungsroman about a young man finding his identity in writing. In contrast, Beautiful Losers can be considered as an 'anti-bildungsroman' since it—in an early postmodern fashion—deconstructs the identity of the main characters by combining the sacred and the profane, religion and sexuality in a rich, lyrical language. Reflecting Cohen's Québécois roots, but perhaps unusually for someone from a Jewish background, a secondary plot in Beautiful Losers concerns Tekakwitha, the Roman Catholic Iroquois mystic. Beautiful Losers, greeted initially with shock by Canadian reviewers (who berated it for its explicit sexual content), is today considered by many critics to be among the finest literary novels of the 1960s. For a good early survey of Cohen's written work, see Leonard Cohen by Steven Scobie (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1978).

Related Topics:
1960s - Hydra - Greek - Flowers for Hitler - 1964 - The Favourite Game - 1963 - Beautiful Losers - 1966 - Bildungsroman - Postmodern - Québécois - Tekakwitha - Roman Catholic - Iroquois

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Music

In 1967, Cohen relocated to the United States to pursue a career as a folk singer-songwriter. His song "Suzanne" became a hit for Judy Collins, and after performing at a few folk festivals, Cohen was discovered by John A. Hammond, the same Columbia Records representative who discovered Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, among others.

Related Topics:
1967 - United States - Judy Collins - John A. Hammond - Columbia Records - Bob Dylan - Bruce Springsteen

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The sound of Cohen's first album Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967) was much too downtrodden to be a commercial success but was widely acclaimed by folk music buffs and by Cohen's peers. He followed up with Songs from a Room (1969) (featuring the oft-covered "Bird on the Wire"), Songs of Love and Hate (1971), and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His recorded sound became a bit more accessible through the use of background vocalists.

Related Topics:
Songs of Leonard Cohen - 1967 - Songs from a Room - 1969 - Songs of Love and Hate - 1971 - New Skin for the Old Ceremony - 1974

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Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cohen toured the United States, Canada and Europe. In 1973, Cohen toured Israel and performed at army bases during the Yom Kippur War. Beginning around 1974, his collaboration with pianist/arranger John Lissauer created a live sound that was almost universally praised by the critics, but never really captured on record. During his time, Cohen often toured with Jennifer Warnes as a back-up singer. Warnes would become a fixture on Cohen's future albums and would even record an album of Cohen songs in 1987, Famous Blue Raincoat.

Related Topics:
1960s - 1970s - Europe - 1973 - Israel - Yom Kippur War - John Lissauer - Jennifer Warnes - 1987 - Famous Blue Raincoat

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In 1977, Cohen released an album called Death of a Ladies' Man (note the plural possessive case; one year later in 1978, Cohen released a volume of poetry with the coyly revised title, Death of a Lady's Man). The album was produced by Phil Spector, well known as the inventor of the "wall of sound" technique, in which pop music is backed with thick layers of instrumentation—an approach much different from Cohen's usually minimalistic instrumentation. The recording of the album was a complete fiasco. Spector reportedly mixed the album in secret studio sessions and Cohen said that Spector once threatened him at gunpoint. The end result was a sound critics considered gaudy and ostentatious and Cohen's songs were considered some of his weakest as well. In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs.

Related Topics:
1977 - Death of a Ladies' Man - 1978 - Death of a Lady's Man - Phil Spector - Wall of sound - 1979 - Recent Songs

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In 1984, Cohen released Various Positions, featuring the oft-covered "Hallelujah," but Columbia declined to release the album in the United States, where Cohen's popularity had declined in recent years. (Throughout his career, Cohen's music has sold better in Europe and Canada than in the U.S.—he once satirically expressed how touched he is at the modesty the American company has shown in promoting his records.)

Related Topics:
1984 - Various Positions - Hallelujah

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In 1986 he made a guest appearance in an episode of the TV series Miami Vice.

Related Topics:
1986 - Miami Vice

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In 1987, Jennifer Warnes' tribute album Famous Blue Raincoat helped restore Cohen's career in the U.S., and the following year he released I'm Your Man, which marked a drastic change in his music. Synthesizers ruled the album, although in a much more subdued manner than on Death of a Ladies' Man, and Cohen's lyrics included more social commentary and dark humour. The album was Cohen's most acclaimed and popular since Songs of Leonard Cohen, and "First We Take Manhattan" and the title song became two of his most popular songs. The use of the album track "Everybody Knows" in the 1990 film Pump Up The Volume helped to expose Cohen's music to a younger audience.

Related Topics:
1987 - Jennifer Warnes - I'm Your Man - Synthesizer - 1990 - Pump Up The Volume

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He followed with another acclaimed album, The Future, in 1992. The Future showed a very bitter, almost misanthropic view of life. The grim, socially detached notes found in songs like "First We Take Manhattan" became an almost explicit cry of hatred expressed in songs like "Waiting for the Miracle," "The Future" and others. Cohen always maintained a cynical, outsider-like view of the world, which was expressed here in its extreme.

Related Topics:
The Future - 1992 - Misanthropic

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In 1994, following a tour to promote The Future, Cohen retreated to the Mount Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, beginning what would become five years of seclusion at the center. In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and took the Dharma name Jikan, meaning silent one. He left Mount Baldy in 1999.

Related Topics:
1994 - Mount Baldy - Zen - 1996 - Rinzai - Buddhist - Dharma - 1999

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In 2001, Cohen returned to music with Ten New Songs, featuring a heavy influence from producer and co-composer Sharon Robinson. With Ten New Songs, Cohen detached himself from the dark, misanthropic themes of The Future and adopted an approach of reconciliation with the world. The album's recurring themes and cohesive musical style (something absent from Cohen's albums since "Songs from a Room") helped maintain this feeling, as if Cohen's years in seclusion made him accept this world that fell from grace with him. In October 2004, he released a follow-up named Dear Heather.

Related Topics:
2001 - Ten New Songs - Sharon Robinson - 2004 - Dear Heather

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Cohen has been under new management since April 2005. He recently wrote and produced an album (Blue Alert) for former-background singer and jazz chanteuse Anjani Thomas (scheduled to first quarter of 2006). Cohen's new book of poetry and drawings (Book of Longing) will also be published in the beginning of 2006, and his new album is slated for mid-2006 with subsequent touring.

Related Topics:
2005 - 2006

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More recently (August, 2005), Cohen's personal finances have put him in the public spotlight, including a cover feature on him with the headline "Devastated!" in Canada's Maclean's magazine. His financial resources, including the publishing rights to his songs, have reportedly been gutted, leading Cohen to file suit against his longtime former manager for gross misappropriation of funds. Cohen is being sued in turn by other former business associates.

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