I lvoe him.
talk about him please, what are your favourite of his songs? do you think he'll ever tour again? have you see that film that came out about him recently? do you like the various covers of his songs? has anyone here ever seen him live?

I love Leonard Cohen.
My mum used to play his stuff when i was little and didnt appreciate it back then.
Weird. I listened to "The Partisan" "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Chelsea Hotel No 2" on repeat last night.
I havent seen the film that came out recnelty, but i really want to! I recorded an interview on the biography channel from quite recently. My sister deleted it so she could record the simpsons or something so i only got to watch the first few minutes.
I love hearing people covering his songs. I guess because his voice was so distinctive, every cover makes the song sound completely different.
I love lots of the Hallelujah covers, and Martha Wainwright does a beautiful cover of "Tower of song" live and Johnathan Rice also does a really haunting "famous Blue Raincoat".

It changes, Take This Longing at the moment, the words are beautiful.

"Everything depends upon how near you sleep to me". I think morrisey borrowed this lyric on Hand In Glove. Sleep became stand though, celibate wuss.

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they made soup out of my research turtles.

I like by the rivers dark, there for you and who by fire the most. he's such a brilliant brilliant man

when i saw guns in '92 'everybody knows' was their intro. was a very odd.

has anyone picked up/heard anjani thomas? i have been very curious, but haven't gotten around to picking up blue alert.

I love "dance me to the end of love".

Everyone should own The Essential Leonard Cohen. I always have at least one Cohen cd or song in a mix in my car. Today I was listening to
BOOGIE STREET
O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,
I never thought we’d meet.
You kiss my lips, and then it’s done:
I’m back on Boogie Street.

A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it’s time to go.
I tidied up the kitchenette;
I tuned the old banjo.
I’m wanted at the traffic-jam.
They’re saving me a seat.
I’m what I am, and what I am,
Is back on Boogie Street.

And O my love, I still recall
The pleasures that we knew;
The rivers and the waterfall,
Wherein I bathed with you.
Bewildered by your beauty there,
I’d kneel to dry your feet.
By such instructions you prepare
A man for Boogie Street.

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One…

So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear.
Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh
Are posted on the door,
There’s no one who has told us yet
What Boogie Street is for.

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,
I never thought we’d meet.
You kiss my lips, and then it’s done:
I’m back on Boogie Street.

A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it’s time to go . . .

He's one of my favourite acoustic songwriters probably. His melodies seem really unorthodox to my ears in a beautiful babies music mobile way. I first heard him through my dad and his poetry is really what grabbed a hold of me. I think the first song I ever heard from Leonard was Suzanne. I was bewildered at his viewpoint towards interpretation with some of the lines in that song; really beautiful stuff. He has a lot of wit and charm in that roguish way.

Chelsea Hotel No 2, First we take Manhattan and Famous Blue Raincoat.
I'm so predictable.

does anyone have an mp3 link for everybody knows?

My favorite is probably who by fire.

I like lots of covers of his songs, but my favorite is everybody knows by concrete blonde. here it is in mp3 if anyone hasn't heard it. I know someone asked for the mp of the original but I don't have it on my computer, so listen to the concrete blonde version instead.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/g5m8we

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As far as his writing goes, I love this:

"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

So Long Marriane is one of my favourite songs of all time ever. Sooo seductive and sexy. But a little bit sad too.

You left when I said that I was curious/I never said that I was brave...

Or something like that.

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The first time I heard "You Know Who I Am" my insides melted. SUCH an amazing song.

Who by fire, Chelsea hotel #2 , Take this waltz and Famous blue raincoat are my fav

Chelsea h is inspired by Marianne faithfull
"We're ugly but we have the music"

I also like Hallelujah
buckley's cover is amazing

lol. marianne ugly??
you mean janis joplin

compare and contrast

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they made soup out of my research turtles.

you're right it's Janis

well i didn't mean that Marianne was/is ugly
just noticed the nice quote

I love Leonard. Have done for years but haven't gotten round to reading any of his writing as yet.

anyways i hate to see this thread down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzGk_CRfXaw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW18n-nStzU
he's such a charismatic person, in music, out of music, in poetry, talking.

Leonard can create so much intensity using just words and a acoustic. My favourite has to be pretty much Songs Of Love And Hate in it entirety. It doesn't get more intense than Avalanche and Dress Rehearsal Rag (my favourite)