The first note - how you found LC and how it affected you

John the Shorts · Post by **John the Shorts** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 11:38 pm

Shwmae Paul

Welcome to the site - never worry about posting on a message board, just relax and join the rest of the beautiful losers.

JTS

Eve · Post by **Eve** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 5:00 pm

no longer available

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 7:21 pm

Hi Eve ~

Still waters run deep ~ even the most "conservative" ones can. However, I'm happy for you that you found that essential spirit, fire, and soul ~ and herald your wise decision to cut your losses the first time around. I know what you mean regarding the missing element[s]. It also sounds like your soon-to-be husband shares your love of Leonard. I hope so.

~ Elizabeth

Arthur42Dent · Post by **Arthur42Dent** » Wed May 07, 2003 6:19 am

I grew up listening to Cohen because my Dad played his music. He'd only listen to him when he was real depressed. Usually it would be at four o'clock in the morning after every one left the party. He'd be totally smashed (and it took a lot to get him drunk) and in a REAL bad mood.

I learned to stay away from him when I heard Leonard's voice. Now it's me who plays his music when I'm in those sad/mad/ drunken states.

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Wed May 07, 2003 2:54 pm

Can the trite like father, like son be applied? Presumably, you're making better use of his music during your sober times than your father did[n't].

Arthur42Dent · Post by **Arthur42Dent** » Thu May 08, 2003 5:43 am

Sober times? What sober times?

Oh, you mean when I'm at work.

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Thu May 08, 2003 1:42 pm

~ yeah, what a shame. Well, do you have ~ or might you get one

? ~ a computer with headphones for playing cd's? Leonard on a hangover.....hmmm, has possibilities.

bumbly3 · Post by **bumbly3** » Mon May 19, 2003 9:39 pm

I was first introduced to the music of Leonard Cohen by my sister in 1971. Her musical taste subsequently took a different track, but I am still an admirer of his works. Though I must admit I prefer his earlier work.

John the Shorts · Post by **John the Shorts** » Mon May 19, 2003 11:09 pm

Shwmae bumbly3

Welcome to the board - most of my LC faves are from his early work but there is a fair spattering of newer songs. As I've said in another thread with such a limited output as LLeonards (in terms of volume) you soon learn to appreciate evry little thing you can get your hands on.

JTS

tom.d.stiller · Post by **tom.d.stiller** » Tue May 20, 2003 4:51 am

Welcome to the forum, bumbly3

when Leonard released "Death Of A Ladies Man", many refused to follow him, but only to find out - years later - that they had deeply underestimated the album. Some discussions about "Ten New Songs" always reminded me of that...

Still, most of my favourites are from the early albums, but as JTS said: "you soon learn to appreciate evry little thing you can get your hands on"... And there are diamonds in each of Leonard's mines...

Tom

witty_owl · Post by **witty_owl** » Tue May 27, 2003 5:20 am

If my recall is accurate- I first heard Leonard Cohens music during the mid-late 60's at a basement coffee lounge in Adalaide where a couple of local folkies would regularly play Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, PP&M,and other traditional folk tunes. One player (Steve Foster) would regularly sing Suzanne and One of us Cannot be Wrong. I was at this time in my life I decided to learn guitar so I too could play and sing these songs.
It would have been some time later, ~ 1970 that I first aquired a Cohen album and thereafter his first songbook.
Cutting teeth,

Schmink · Post by **Schmink** » Tue May 27, 2003 9:10 pm

I like being part of the next generation and must also confess to being helped along a bit by my mum. When I was fourteen I had heard of him, mentioned in the same breath as Dylan and Joplin usually, and wanted to check it out for myself. Everyone said it was depressing; well, I'd already figured out that I liked stuff like that most of the time so I was in the library one day and found Selected Poems. I took it home and loved it like I've never loved anything else. It's still my favourite book of poetry ever. One day my mum happened upon me reading it and said "I've got that book, you know". This was without a doubt the first time in living memory I had ever even considered the fact that my mother was once young, and passionate about things, and that she could possibly like or understand anything that I liked and understood (ah, youth). The possibility that we might be similar on any level never entered my brain, I must have thought 'grown-ups' had been grown in a lab in expectance of my untimely arrival. I was gobsmacked. And she was too I think. She went up into the loft and got it, I didn't even really believe her at first. She gave it to me. The library copy went back and I still had my own copy, with her maiden name written in the front. Brashly I scored a line through it and wrote my own beneath (I do regret that now, there was no need for the line). After that it just flowed, I did see NBK and the songs in it were the most sophisticated on the soundtrack; "There is a crack, a crack/in everything/That's how the light gets in" stayed with me. But I had started to collect his early albums by then which remain my favourites. When I came home with the Greatest Hits on vinyl at fifteen (the cd cost the same but I decided LC would like me to buy it on vinyl for nostalgia's sake, and those crackles do add so much) my mum came into my room and listened to Suzanne with tears in her eyes, telling me about her college days. She was singing and I'd never noticed before how beautiful her voice is. I feel so happy to have LC as a part of my life because of not only the way he's affected me as I got older through collecting his albums as I went along (I have most of them now and it always feels like each one's entry to my life was at the right time, somehow) but because he helped me understand my mum and it ultimately brought us so much closer together at an age when so far as I was concerned adults were authority freaks who had never been young.
That book remains to this day my most treasured possession, 'One Of The Nights I Didn't Kill Myself' is my favourite poem. There are pencil crosses beside some of the titles; these are the poems my mother was learning to play, sometimes to her own little tunes, in the 70's. I'm adopted and that we can have such a special bond, independent of anything biological, means so much to her and to me. Thank you Leonard! As the man himself says on one of his computer drawings (ironically perhaps but what the hell) "Father Cohen Loves Us All".

Schmink · Post by **Schmink** » Tue May 27, 2003 9:16 pm

One more thing I'd like to add is that for fans in the UK a good place to buy LC albums are Fopp record stores, we have one in Leamington Spa but others are kind of few and far between I know. Most of his albums are available there for a fiver as well as loads other classics like Jefferson Airplane. I don't work for them, I promise!

Just a tip.

John the Shorts · Post by **John the Shorts** » Wed May 28, 2003 12:51 am

There's a really good record store in Bridgend where I get most of my CDs.

JTS (Why do we still call them Record Stores when most of them don't stock any Vinyl?

)

Schmink · Post by **Schmink** » Wed May 28, 2003 1:14 am

I don't know but we do, what I want to know is if it's like a die-hard British thing or if folk across the big pond do it too. Feedback.....

The first note - how you found LC and how it affected you

First heard