If there's one guy on earth cooler than George Clooney it's Leonard Cohen

This live version of "Closing Time" is so much better than the CD one.

Ah we're drinking and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high
And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion
she's rubbing half the world against her thigh

 

If I ever get married, I want "Dance Me to the End of Love" as my wedding song.

Whenever I listen to Leonard Cohen, I ask myself why I don't always listen to Leonard Cohen.

 

His most recent release is excellent and he is a great favorite of mine. One problem I have, and it isn't his voice: I mostly download music to run to. I can get away with "Show Me the Place" if it's early in my run and I'm just stretching out, but when I'm really struggling, I tend to want something upbeat to come up next in the shuffle. Other than "Closing Time," Leonard often lets me down in that regard. He should consider the needs of his audience!

 

Seeing the video for Closing Time on MuchMusic is what got me into Leonard Cohen in 1992, and he immediately became my favorite songwriter -- still is. the poetry of his l;yrcis -- wow:

'there's a crack, a crack, in everything; that's how the light gets in'
'i'm on the side of snake eyes, tossed against the side of seven'
'But I’m always alone, and my heart is like ice, and it’s crowded and cold in my secret life.'

Despite the genius of his art, the thing I think I most admire is his abandoning music for six years of Zen study,right in the middle of his mid-90s renaissance.

For anyone interested, I'd really recommend two DVDs: Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man, which is a film about Cohen featuring (among others, U2); and Live In London, a the concert film of hius last (and now ongoing) tour.

 

i actually have a variation of the same problem. i was loaned the CD a while ago but have barely listened to it, and it's because i tend to listen to music either while I'm running—for which he is completely inappropriate—or as background music when I'm working from home. That doesn't work either, because for his music to work you have to pay attention.

 

Ragu, here is one case where I am your biggest supporter. Cohen has been a bane of my musical existence since college. It's easier now to avoid him than it was back then, when the percentage of New England women students who were really into him was distressingly high.

 

Y'all be Leonard haters. Sad.
And Gee, like all Bruins fans, you just hate him because he's from Montreal.

 

Cohen is from Montreal? But I thought he liked women?

 

I became familiar with Cohen when I saw "Pump up the Volume" when I was in high school. Christian Slater plays "Everybody Knows" as his into for his pirate radio show. They also play "If It Be Your Will" at some point in the movie.

I've been a Cohen fan ever since...

 

Amen.

They'll be playing a Leonard Cohen/Tom Waits Muzak marathon when Kate Upton leads me by the hand to hell.

 

OK, maybe you could snidely call Leonard Cohen's work "Muzak," but can you imagine Tom Waits coming on at the dentist's office?