Thank you, Leonard Cohen

[AlexandraLaughing]

It occurred to me that now that LC is 80, it might be worth saying something to him that it won't be possible to say for ever. (I understand people on this forum who know him will pass such things on to him as appropriate.)

So I wanted to say thank you to Leonard for documenting the passionate intensity of his inner life with such honesty in his beautiful and harrowing songs, over such a long period, at such a cost to himself from time to time, and giving it to whoever cares to receive it. I understand religion pretty well, and I love his Jewish priestly prophet's take on Jesus and the imagery associated with him, from Suzanne to Samson in New Orleans. I also understand some things like darkness and burdens and religious longing. But he also documents with honesty things I don't really know much about at all, like not going home with your hard-on, thirsting for casual sex, and why you might not want to forget Babylon.

Who tells the truth about the inner life as LC has done? Who dares? Who tracks the longing heart through five decades and distils it so the rest of us can share his knowledge, so hard won? Who tracks the interactions of men and women with such insight from Sisters of Mercy to Did I Ever Love You, by way of There Is A War and I'm Your Man? Who is so insouciantly (supposedly) revealing about the way violence both harrows and gives spice? Who so combines nakedness and self-protection, irony and risking his life to hear some country-western song?

I hope there are still more songs, still more albums, to come. But whether there are or not, from a room, from the darkness, from a traveller, from a broken hill, from the future, from a window, from people to whom you've given so many well-lived and well-grown and well-carved words to feel with, and to make sense of their lives with:

Thank you.

[mutti]

That is beautiful 'Alexandra'.
Leslie

[Tchocolatl]

Seriously : Thank you. Again. I found Comfort. The Comfort. For the comfort I found, again : thank you. The Magic operates, again. And again. This a Mystery so huge and beautiful, Leonard Cohen.