I have never been one to go back and listen to the back catalogue of a musician that has died or read the work of a closely departed writer. That is until now. For a lot of people, the passing of Leonard Cohen will have marked any emotion with people. The more I listened to some of his songs for the first time in ages or in some cases for the first time, I needed to get some of these thoughts down.
This in many ways isn’t surprising once his offerings were called ‘music to slit your wrists to.’ On some levels that is true but it kind of misses the point of what he produced. There is a lot of humour all be it very dry and at times self-deprecating. That the line for ‘Tower of Song’ where he sings the lines “I was born like this, I had no choice/ I was born with the gift of a golden voice.”
I didn’t discover Cohen until fairly late on, and this weekend started to wonder what would have happened if I had come across him as a teenager? I this to a certain extent I would have been more confident, certainly more articulate and probably less emotionally stunted.
What I mean by this is while I have not ever suffered from depression, there have been certain moments of self-doubt. Cohen makes this feel like part of the journey. It’s these hard times that make life all the worthier of celebration.
In his song ‘The Future’ he references how he has seen it all before but one thing is constant and worth fighting for as he says
"I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
But love’s the only engine of survival”
There is, of course, the danger of reading too much into the songs/ poems/ novels of anyone. We take we need from them all. Sometimes we just need someone wiser and to look towards as much as we need light relief of the fool.
Well anyway here is a collection of Leonard Cohen songs that I like some that make me think, some that make me smile and some that make you cry.
