Unii dintre voi il stiti(probabil) doar ca scriitor, dar el este si un foarte talentat muzician a carui voce calda si plina de calm face minuni...here it is....Leonard Cohen(Bio ptr cei care nu stiu mai nimic despre el)
Words by Larry "Ratso" Sloman
"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think that it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."
L. Cohen, "Beautiful Losers" (1966).
From a mountain in Montreal to an island off the coast of Greece, through an endless succession of sterile hotel rooms, by way of a small cabin in a monastery high above a mountain southeast of the city of angels, and then back to a modest house in a decidedly unfashionable section of Los Angeles, Leonard Cohen has explored that "remote human possibility," with an appetite that is sometimes swollen and sometimes spartan. For the last forty-odd years, over the course of nine volumes of poetry, two novels, and now fourteen record albums, Cohen has shared his vision with those among us who realize that the mysteries of the interior life is a project never fathomed by the latest round of contestants on "Survivor."
Leonard Norman Cohen was born in Montreal, PQ in 1934. His father, an engineer who owned a clothing concern, died when Leonard was nine. He went on to attend McGill University, where at 17 he formed a country-western trio called the Buckskin Boys. He also began writing poetry and became part of the local boho-literary scene, a scene so "underground" that it was bereft of 'subversive intentions because even that would be beneath it." His first collection of poetry, ??€?Let Us Compare Mythologies,??€� was published in 1956, while he was still an undergraduate. ??€?The Spice Box Of Earth??€� (1961), his second collection, catapulted Leonard Cohen to international recognition.
After a brief stint at Columbia University in New York, Leonard Cohen obtained a grant and was able to escape the confines of North America. He traveled throughout Europe and eventually settled on the Greek island of Hydra, where he shared his life with Marianne Jenson, and her son Axel. Cohen stayed in Greece on and off for seven years. He wrote two more collections of poetry, the controversial ??€?Flowers For Hitler??€� (1964) and ??€?Parasites of Heaven??€� (1966); and two highly acclaimed novels, ??€?The Favorite Game??€� (1963), his portrait of the artist as a young Jew in Montreal, and ??€?Beautiful Losers??€� (1966), described on its dust jacket as "a disagreeable religious epic of incomparable beauty." Upon its publication, the Boston Globe declared, "James Joyce is not dead. He is living in Montreal under the name of Cohen." To date, each book has sold more than a million copies worldwide.
But even the warmth of Hydra couldn??€�t contain Cohen??€�s restless spirit. "For the writing of books, you have to be in one place," he told Musician magazine in 1988. "You tend to gather things around you when you write a novel. You need a woman in your life. It's nice to have some kids around, 'cause there's always food. It's nice to have a place that's clean and orderly. I had those things and then I decided to be a songwriter." Leaving behind his domestic scene, Cohen returned to America, intent on settling near Nashville and pursuing a musical career. He was championed by Judy Collins, who recorded both "Suzanne" and "Dress Rehearsal Rag" on her 1966 album, ??€?In My Life.??€� In 1967, Cohen appeared at the Newport Folk Festival where he came to the attention of legendary Columbia A&R man John Hammond (who also recruited Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to the label). By Christmas, Columbia had released his first album, ??€?The Songs of Leonard Cohen.??€�
It was a remarkable debut, as songs like "Suzanne," "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," "So Long, Marianne," and "Sisters of Mercy" propelled Cohen to the top of the pop-confessional pantheon. The songs had such power that Robert Altman's 1971 film ??€?McCabe and Mrs. Miller??€� became, in effect, the first long-form video for Cohen's soundtrack.
In 1968, Cohen published ??€?Selected Poems: 1956-1968,??€� an anthology of poems from the earlier books along with a section of new, previously unpublished poems. For this volume, Cohen was awarded the Governor-General??€�s Award, Canada??€�s highest literary distinction. He promptly declined the honor.
??€?Songs From a Room??€� (1969), his second album, and ??€?Songs of Love and Hate??€� (1971) further reinforced Cohen's standing as the master of mortification and the sentry of solitude. With "Bird On a Wire," "The Song of Isaac," "Joan of Arc," and "Famous Blue Raincoat," he continued to stretch the borders of the pop song landscape.
1972 marked the release of a new book of poems, ??€?The Energy of Slaves??€� and Cohen's first live album, ??€?Live Songs,??€� which featured an amazing 14-minute improvisation, "Please Don't Pass Me By," along with live versions of songs from his first three albums.
??€?New Skin For the Old Ceremony??€� (1973) was a bit of a stylistic departure. Featuring a more orchestrated sound (thanks to producer John Lissauer), Cohen continued his investigations into the hottest crucible of the human spirit -- the muffled battles in the boudoirs.
Cohen took a sabbatical from the musical wars for the next few years, releasing only a greatest hits album, ??€?Best of Leonard Cohen??€� (1975).
In 1977, he was back with what was certainly his most curious album, ??€?Death of a Ladies' Man.??€� It started as collaboration with famed producer Phil Spector, but ended with Cohen being excluded from the final stages of recording. "It was a catastrophe," he remembers. "Those are all scratch vocals, and Phil mixed it in secret under armed guard. I had to decide whether I was going to hire my own private army and fight it out on Sunset Boulevard, or let it go. I let it go." The following year Cohen published a collection of poems and prose-poems titled ??€?Death of a Lady??€�s Man.??€�
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