Leonard Cohen Is Back With ‘Old Ideas’


Asked if he’s tired of people covering Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen answers:

“There’s been a couple of times when other people have said can we have a moratorium please on Hallelujah? Must we have it at the end of every single drama and every single Idol? And once or twice I’ve felt maybe I should lend my voice to silencing it but on second thought no, I’m very happy that it’s being sung.”

The songwriting maestro is back, promoting his new album ‘Old Ideas’ and having interviews taken. A new Leonard Cohen album is truly an event in music. You know that a Leonard Cohen album is never rushed, you know Cohen has crafted every song as carefully as only he can. You also know there’s going to be a great deal of deadpan humour and wisdom, in his music as well as in his interviews.

Among the recent interviews is one with Jarvis Cocker. Asked about his craft, Cohen answered with:

“You know, you just work with what you got. I always felt I was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get the song together. I never had the sense that I was standing in front of a buffet table with a multitude of choices. I felt I was operating in more like what Yeats used to say was the ‘foul rag and bone shop of the heart’.”

As modest as ever, Cohen shows that good character and superior creative output can go together.

Click here to listen to Darkness, a magnificent new song from Leonard Cohen’s album ‘Old Ideas’.

Source: The Guardian

Image: Julia Nicolle

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