It's great to hear that i'm not the only person crazy about LC's music.
...everything else I listen to just seems to lack the deapness and sophistication of LC's music. And his voice is just so incredible too
I feel the same way
I think I have driven all my friends crazy. I can't understand how the take his music so calmly "yeah...it's ok...er...pretty good" but not "it's great ,it's amazing"
I wonder who LC was in a past life for he has something very special- people listen to him and...they're hooked for the rest of their lives.
I agree with cbel that his music is great art!
Who LC was in a past life? That's an interesting question . My guess is that he was somekind of wiseman or shaman. He definitly has more charisma and wisdom than the average mortal...
Exactly, Greta and Christine.....other artists' lyrics, music, and singing pale in comparison to Leonard's. The shaman/wiseman, amongst other elevated persons, sound like at least a couple of the possibilities along the way.
the idea that he was a shaman is an interesting one...
At least it seems that he was a "wizard" of somekind. How else would he have such an aura that just keeps and keeps gathering admireres?
well,i can`t quite agree with you,
of course he is an amazing artist,but he is not the only artist who has so many fans and admirers,,,every fan thinks that his or her favourite artist is the best,so it isn`t like he had to be a shaman or something....it`s just the fans feel this way about him,,,but i believe that Enrique Iglesias`s fans feel the same about Enrique too,,,and so on...every artist is a "god" to the fans....so....
a tear is like a magnet- it always makes another tear to follow
In March of last year I was left alone in the house, and going into one of those dark-night-of-the-soul moods. All by myself in a house deep in the woods. No lights on the road out front, no cars going by. It had been snowing all day and the outside sounds were muffled. Only the animals outside were active, silent and unseen. Inside there was only me, with a light on, and the TV.
But it took a while to push that on/off button at the start of that long night, and see more of what hell had become like to others again. Luckily we only get three channels clearly, and PBS was one of them.
And it was Austin City Limits with Leonard Cohen. And he was singing something about Jesus. I thought, "Who is this old country/gospel singer?" Until I noticed a twist within his words. He was not singing the traditional message.
All of a sudden I felt that I was not in hell any more, so I sat down on the couch and rested and watched the rest of Cohen. The program was a rebroadcast from an 88 taping, or so.
Where was I in 88?
Back in art school out west. And, "who is Leonard Cohen?"
So I wrote his name down. And when my wife came home from the ski trip I asked her if she had ever heard of him, but she had scarcely even known any Dylan. So off I began a search to know the depth of this man, which began on a dark night.
I was 23 years old and heard "Suzanne" and his voice haunted me. I followed him for years and enjoyed every piece of music he wrote or poem.
Today, my song is Alexandra's Leaving and this is my song that Leonard wrote for me!! It is haunting!
What a gifted man who has touched my soul so deeply!
Alexandrasleaving
Toronto
Hello - also new to the board...I loved reading the other stories of how people got into Leonard Cohen. Here's mine:
While I had known Leonard Cohen's music for some time, due to my dad playing it around the house, I didn't get properly into him until I bought an Al Stewart record called 'Zero She Flies', where he thanks a whole lot of people for various things, books, songs, poems. He thanks Leonard Cohen for 'Gift'* and 'Stranger Song'. I decided to check out all of the music on Stewart's list**. So I duly went out and bought the Leonard Cohen record that has 'Stranger Song' on it, and I bought myself a collection of his poetry, so that I could check out 'Gift' too. That was in 1986 (when I was 16 - when all my friends were into totally different music). I loved both, and the rest of the songs, especially Teachers and Stories of the Street.
So I was hooked and started playing my dad's Leonard Cohen record too, which was a best of (which I have since sneakily incorporated into my own collection).
Then I started buying the other early stuff and became totally obsessed with Avalanche - what an amazing song. And I have bought all the later records too, but somehow to this day, to my shame I must confess I'm missing the records of the middle period - the last album before I'm Your Man I have is New Skin for the Old Ceremony.
I'm totally excited that Leonard Cohen is going on tour, I never thought I would get the chance to see him live. I'm really disappointed it's in the O2 arena, the venue seems too large, but I agree with what's being said on the other threads, 20000 fans together must create a pretty special atmosphere.
*You tell me that silence
is nearer to peace than poems
but if for my gift
I brought you silence
(for I know silence)
you would say
"This is not silence
this is another poem"
and you would hand it back to me.
**I also got into Roy Harper, Fairport Convention & Sandy Denny, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan due to that list.
I was 17, it was August 1968. I walked into a civil service hostel room in South Kensington that I was to share for the next two years with 3 others (tight quarters!) and Barry Hook (whom I'd known vaguely a year earlier in grammar school in Dover, Kent) said "Listen to this". Songs of Leonard Cohen. The end of all things. The beginning of all things. I've been buying albums and books ever since.
In 1970 I exchanged my old Monkees albums (yeah, sorry) for a busted guitar and painfully learned to pick "Bird on a Wire" and so many others. And after I married, my first wife and I did a killer "Dress Rehearsal Rag". She sang better than she wifed. I played better than I spoused.
I saw LC three times in London. One year he played the Albert Hall which is 10 zillions miles seat-to-stage and the next day I heard on the radio that he'd decided to play another concert (I think at the Charing Cross theater???) in two days time. I bought my single ticket at once. What a blast that one was - a small venue, dancing in the aisles - "and they say my music is depressing" LC intoned.
Living near Cleveland OH nowadays, I've just got two tickets for the Hamilton show on June 3 having been angered, frustrated and really ticked off that when tickets for Toronto went on sale at 11am a week ago Saturday there were already none available. Thanks to the LCFiles and this forum I found out this morning for the first time that there are concerts before June 6... there's nothing shown anywhere else it seems. So after 30+ years, I'll get to see and hear this greatest of poet/songwriters again.
Good concert going all!
Meade
PS Roy Harper? You're the first person I've "known" to name that name - Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion eh?!
. My guess is that he was somekind of wiseman or shaman. He definitly has more charisma and wisdom than the average mortal...
~ all the way around, of course 
. So much better when both of you love and appreciate him.