A Portrait of Leonard Cohen as a Young Artist | Hacker News Reader

A Portrait of Leonard Cohen as a Young Artist

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63 pointsapollinaire16 comments

I am not a particular fan of Cohen’s music, but as far as humans go, I think he led a fascinating life. He was a poet, a novelist, a singer/songwriter … and he found success (and failure) multiple times at very different stages of his life.

I recently watched “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song” (2022), and would recommend it as a starting place to anyone who’s at least vaguely familiar with the titular song.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7600742/

I watched Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love a few years ago. His life was certainly interesting, but he didn’t seem like a great person. Letting a young child in your care take psychedelics out a bad taste in my mouth.

I am a big fan of Cohen and I normally try to stay away from the personal life of my favourite artist. But this acceptance speech talks heaps of the kind of person he was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnx20BZquAo&ab_channel=cdgr0...

Measure that against Bob Dylan's show on the Nobel prize.

Disclaimer: I am an even bigger Dylan's fan.

the partisan song has been running through my head, as these things will, for the past several days:

I have changed my name so often

I've lost my wife and children

But I have many friends

And some of them are with me

And so prettily rendered with french lyrics!

one of the (many) things i like about cohen's songs is the backing girl singers. anyone that likes cohen should check out the "famous blue raincoat" album by Jennifer Warnes.

Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen

Directed by Donald Brittain & Don Owen - 1965 | 44 min

https://www.nfb.ca/film/ladies_and_gentlemen_mr_leonard_cohe...

There is a giant portrait of him as an older artist on the side of a building downtown Montreal.

You can see it pretty well from the mountain looking S.E.

IIRC a good spot was the Ave Du Museé at the top of the stairs to Pine.

That doesn't say much. There is also one with Celine Dion... If there is one thing I'm grateful for after moving back to NL it is that I no longer have to endure Celine Dion 3 times every hour wherever there is a radio playing.

Her heart will have to go on without you listening.

Hehe. Ok. Game, set & match to you.

One of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPVYvkovIvc

The entire discography is great. I really like his final stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FesS3D-7o1g

He was also a Rinzai Zen priest. Probably an important bit about his life. Takes a lot of effort.

Wonderful artist. Have every album of his in my collection.

It's really weird. He's one of few artists whose songs consistently get better the more you listen to them. It's like you need a few passes to even begin to appreciate how brilliant they are.

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