A small contribution from Italy:
http://qn.quotidiano.net/spettacoli/mus ... ardo.shtml
http://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli-e-c ... -28508999/
And here are the Google translations.
Quotidiano.net
Cohen. The Old Ideas of a 'Lazy Bastard'.
London, January 21, 2012 - as a backdrop to the debate that dragged on winter soul behind those made 77 years last September, Leonard Cohen chooses the frame of the dreary London in late January. Although the stucco and velvet tie the songs including the latest album 'Old ideas', in stores in ten days, are sparkling dell'May Fair Hotel. "When you listen you'll look in the eyes one by one to figure out what you think," says the musician reporters came from all over Europe before sitting down together and listen to these ten new songs as if for the first time. But forty minutes later, the applause that melts the last notes of 'Different sides' frustrates any anxiety, prompting him to thank clutching his hat to the heart. Cohen says he only realized at this age the instructions for use of his voice and one might believe from amplification, while the dense and cavernous baritone voice ("if you did not smoke would probably be a soprano") creeps in painful resignation 'Going home'. "I love to talk with Leonard, he is a sportsman and a pastor, a lazy bastard who lives in an elegant dress," admits the text is not without a touch of complacency. "Maybe I exaggerated with the elegant dress ...", he glosses in the hat pointing to a polite smile. Although to point your finger against the time that slips between your fingers, blackened with ink from an experience hard to wash off, is above all that 'The Darkness' played well on tour, 247 concerts in two years in front of nearly two million fan base that does not mean that this new effort CD format can not add an additional tail. "I have no future, I know that my days are few, but this is not so nice," Cohen sings about being dubbed the 'beautiful loser' in search of a decent sunset. More and more hearing continues the key to the album seems to become one of the blues. The Hammond songs like 'The Darkness' or 'Different Sides', the harmonica of 'Lullaby', the mournful violin of 'Amen', the sensuality of the night 'Anyhow' push in this direction.
BUT there are also songs in the repertoire of different sign as "Crazy to Love You" by Leonard dedicated to art and life partner Anjani Thomas, with whom he had already recorded a popular "Blue Alert". Since the last studio album to his name "Dear Heather" has been more than seven years and perhaps it would have passed if the urge to write off many a tour (monumental) the void left by former cash manager Kelley Lynch, volatilizzatosi with almost 5 million dollars of his savings, had not forced the "lazy bastard" to shake it from its torpor putting in motion the creative process he compares the hive in search of honey from the bear. "Everything can eventually result in an incredible pleasure or unspeakable pain, but you can not do anything about it. And 'life. " Produced by Ed Sanders, "Old ideas" is the twelfth chapter of a discography started by Cohen in the mid-seventies, when collections of poems such as "We compare then our myths" or "land of Spices" had packed a solid literary reputation. "Here in London a few days ago are in tornado alley house in Hampstead, where I took in '59," he recalls. "I was from a lady who rented the first thing he asked me what job I did. The writer said. "And what you write?". About three pages a day, said. "Well, get to work now will check it and know that if you beat the weak there's the door. "The favorite game," my first volume of short stories, was born that way. " Andrea Spinelli
Leonard Cohen: "I still sing but are now discouraged a poet "
Comes out later this month the new album by the great Canadian singer-songwriter, entitled Old ideas. Ten new songs in eight years since the last collection of new songs. "I do not write songs, poems only courting the music. But I always seem to scrape the bottom of the barrel, to be, to quote Yeats, the rag of the heart"
from our correspondent Giuseppe Videtta
LONDON - He has fifteen years, is the 1949. In Montreal the wind is cold, sharp. The boy has not a penny in my pocket to warm up in its place comes a poem, a used book store. He leafs through one. He takes it, then pass to pay. "From that day I have not abandoned Federico Garcia Lorca," says Leonard Cohen.
The baritone voice is magnetic, even ironically. On beautiful women, who spend years on, the vices and virtues of old age. And 'entered at that stage of life where men shrink, returning children. Seems fragile, almost disappears into the double-breasted. The Borsalino takes the eyes in shadow. Must thank that voice still cloudy and sexy when he entered the protagonist in the third age with a record 247 tour dates (2008-10) that produced a couple of live albums and a DVD.
On January 31, eight years from Dear Heather, Public Old ideas, a CD of unreleased, some music by Patrick Leonard, Madonna collaborator town. But they are not tunes. "I do not write songs, poems courting only the music," Cohen makes it clear.
His concerts have attracted an audience worthy of a pop idol. Merit of music or poetry?
"Poetry comes first. Only rarely do the verses become songs. For good will of friends or my girlfriend Anjani (Thomas)."
It was an almost obligatory step, his manager had stolen five million dollars leaving your account dry while she was in the monastery of Mt Baldy.
"Writing is not always a luxury, it is sometimes a necessity. And I assure you that the poet does not live in a comfort zone in this age in which he speaks in slogans. I was that I was on Leonard. They have always said that the My songs are self-indulgent and moved by an instinct suicide? me again repeats Patrick Leonard when he read the text of Going Home. As you blame him? It 'a soliloquy. "
Eight years for ten new songs are so many.
"There were not even that if the recent tour had not restarted energies. The enthusiasm of the audience enlightened me. And rejuvenated. I do not understand why I waited 15 years. I had become like Ronald Reagan in the years of decline. Remembered I had seen a good part, that of president in a movie, and I barely remembered to have been a singer. ... As for the compositions I could tell her that my house is full of manuscripts, which I have so many ideas to have every time spoiled for choice. It is not. I am a poet, discouraged, I always seem to scrape the bottom of the barrel, to be, to quote Yeats, the rag of the heart. Poetry is a mysterious process, inexplicable, uncontrollable , dangerous even, depends on a certain grace, enlightenment of the moment. And if you delay too much, risks paralysis. I have an idea at a time. And on that I can work forever. "
For example?
"Hallelujah, who sang a beautiful song too many. It 'was on the desk for four years. At the end he had eighty verses."
Now that he has rediscovered the life on the road there will be a new tour?
"You see, I have to smoke to keep this entry a lot. What I have done continuously since I left my Zen retreat (in 1999). I'm almost 78 years, could be dangerous. But if I stop the risk of becoming a soprano."
It has a companion 25 years younger, but his reputation is legendary Tombeur de femmes. We are still in their twenties who are waiting after the show.
"At my age it's a relief to have a reputation with women, so you do not have to waste time in endless preliminaries."
How did it end with Federico Garcia after that first "encounter" in Montreal?
"I have maintained an intimate relationship with him - my daughter is called Lorca (in February has become a grandfather, Lorca Cohen, 36, had a daughter, Katherine Viva, by Rufus Wainwright, Ed.) Discover the things that a teenager will remain attacked him. Yeats and Lorca were poets who understand the fly - it took me years to penetrate the sonnets of Shakespeare. "
It was here in London that took shape his first novel.
"Yes, in the district of Hampstead, was 1959. The landlord, a gruff woman, asked me: what do you do? Writer. How many pages per day do you write? Three. Ok, will check every day, but eventually will be three in the street. Thus was born The favorite game (1963) ".
He has in mind for the future?
"I answer with the verses of Darkness: 'I have no future / I know I counted the days / This is not so nice / Only so many things to do / I thought that the past would have been enough / But the darkness has swallowed that too '".
It 's time to awards: the New Yorker has streaming Going Home, Random House has inserted in the Everyman series, in good company with Byron and Keats, and Spain gave the Prince of Asturias, the highest honor the literary; a jury composed by Bono, among others, Salman Rushdie and Paul Simon was awarded the PEN New England as the "Song lyrics of literary excellence" ...
"... Along with Chuck Berry. What satisfaction! I wish I'd written myself into the" Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news "."
(January 21, 2012) © All rights reserved
