Farewell, Leonard Cohen.

Spoke to my mum tonight. After the usual, 'hello' and 'how are you?' was finished, the topic changed.

'You have heard the news then?' she said.

'which, in particular?' I replied. Knowing that of late we have not been short of news, however depressing.

'About Leonard Cohen. He died today. He was 82!'

'Yes, I heard.' I said. And I related the story that I literally did hear. This morning I had had a lie in. It's Friday. I know I the traffic is easier so I can leave later. I woke up, not to my alarm but my wife's. It is set to the R4 today programme. I don't hear it often. It is invariably spoken news. Not today. As I explained to my mum. I had woken up hearing Leonard Cohen singing, 'Suzanne'. I have heard this song a thousand times. I utterly adore this song. I also, instantly, knew that it meant that Leonard Cohen had died. 

Just by hearing the song I knew. I didn't need to hear the newscaster explain it to me.

Then my mum said to me. 'I thought about you when I heard. I thought you'd be very upset by it. I remember when you were in your bedroom and all I could hear coming from your room was Leonard Cohen songs. I am sorry.'

I neither knew, nor met Leonard Cohen. He knew me though, as a 16 year old, he knew me. He had to have known me because he wrote all those songs, just for me. There could be no other explanation, I thought. 

Music is soul food for me. Leonard Cohen was a huge part of that banquet. 

I have shed the odd tear about this today just by reciting my favourite lyrics of his in my head at work. A little part of who I am has been diminished by the news. 

"Like a bird on a wire/Like a drunk in a midnight choir/I have tried/In my way/To be free"

There are so many themes and depth to Leonard Cohen's songs. He draws on his Jewish Heritage in many songs. Perhaps his most famous ones being the Story of Isaac




Arguably his most famous song (certainly the most covered and most commercial - though not when he released it) draws imagery from the story of David and Bathsheba



This version. Not the most famous cover of the song but my absolute favourite version. Jeff Buckley, the artist. died aged 27. Another lost talent.

but the words are pure Cohen;

Now I've heard there was a secret chord/That David played, and it pleased the Lord/But you don't really care for music, do you?/It goes like this/The fourth, the fifth/The minor fall, the major lift/The baffled king composing Hallelujah/

Hallelujah/Hallelujah/Hallelujah/Hallelujah/

Your faith was strong but you needed proof/You saw her bathing on the roof/Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you/

I have never been fully able to conceive the level of genius that could create these lines. Though the last part has always struck me as near perfect 'Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you'. I often hum this on my ways about to and fro...

Last week I was listening to his new album. It was the best album he'd made in 20 years. It was an absolute return to form. It holds, perhaps, may favourite Leonard Cohen song.

'If you want it darker' - Again, run through with biblical references pointing to his utter knowledge that time was starting to run out towards his end. Almost like Bowie, who in his last album left his goodbye. So Cohen i 'If you want it darker' is almost giving us his last goodbye.

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name

Vilified, crucified, in the human frame

A million candles burning for the love that never came

You want it darker

We kill the flame

If you are the dealer, let me out of the game

If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame

You want it darker

Hineni, hineni

Hineni, hineni

I'm ready, my lord

Hineni

Hineni, hineni

Hineni

The thing is that he may well have been ready. But I wasn't.