Leonard Cohen in 2015- and beyond

[AlexandraLaughing]

There doesn't seem to be a topic up yet about LC in 2015 (except that there won't be a tour), so I thought I'd start one.

What's he going to do next? Well, we know there are still some songs he's working on that haven't yet appeared on an album, so with any luck there will be another one before too long. But I have some other thoughts.

If he tours again, it will need to be a new crew and new singers, presumably, and it will take a long time to get it all together. He might tour again, but my guess is it won't be for a couple of years. He will have to get used to being 80 (maybe he already has). In my experience (I have a lot of friends in their 80s), you think for a couple of months that it's indecent to go on and plan anything new, having had your ten bonus years already ('Our span is 70 years, 80 for those who are strong'), and you really ought to do the decent thing and die, and then you realise you have a lot of life in you and a lot of new ideas, and you go off and write another book or two.

Maybe he will write another novel? I get the impression he has a lot left to say that he hasn't actually said yet. Some of it he's clearly decided not to say, but some of it he could. The songs have almost become a kind of trick- this could be something deep about religion, but it could be about oral sex, or it could be about one of my former girlfriends- guess which one. Or it could be about Israel, or America, or whatever, but he won't say it clearly. So he works hard for the smile of both his cynical, sardonic audience and his dreamy, adoring one. But now he doesn't need the money, he doesn't need to be reassured that he has a public. He's at the stage where he's faced with his friends, his family, and the purity of his own voice. So I would guess he could say something new now, something big. (I don't want to say 'Look at me one last time', I want to say 'Look at God, and all that humanity is before God, one last time'.)

Also, I think I see in 'Going home' some themes he hasn't finished with, or that he's barely started with. Could they be hints of projects we may see more of?

He wants to write a love song - no shortage of those. My current favourite is the rewritten 'Lover, Lover, Lover'
An anthem of forgiving- -Has this been written yet? And if it has, was it 'Alexandra Leaving'?
A manual for living with defeat -'A Thousand Kisses Deep', I presume. But this would be a good novel

A cry above the suffering -Samson in New Orleans, or maybe Almost Like the Blues. But surely there are more politically extensive cries waiting to find expression from LC?
A sacrifice recovering -It seems to me there is a lot more to be said on this one. I take it this was 'Come, healing'. But that's barely a beginning

But that isn’t what I need him
To complete

Ay, there's the rub. Who is this 'I'? And where, and when, and how, will he or she let LC speak in 2015 and beyond?