I Cried as if he had died someone in my family, because Leonard Cohen is my family. Too important, too close, too my. This is the gift of genius: establish intimate relationships with millions of people. I was blessed by the gift the more modest of monogamy, and in music it was with him that I got married. Of course, there are many other and many other, but not in the same way, not with the same passion, not with this intensity, because in anyone else found such a capacity to illuminate the interior of things and of people, translating into words what we didn’t know feel. There is no other to whom you can say: "Give me just one more verse, Leonard, and I will be saved." Call it a musician or a poet is to fall short. Was a prophet who spoke to us of the only two things that really matter in life: God and love.
I Started not to support it. We were in 1988, and Leonard Cohen had just released an album called I’m Your Man. I don’t know how many weeks he was in the first place of the Portuguese top, but I know that couldn’t see the video of First We Take Manhattan, with the seagulls in the sky, and Cohen at the beach. I was 15 years old and it was too new. I continued to be too new for a long time. In 2002 I had a unique privilege: when he returned to the disks, after nine years of silence and five meditation in a buddhist monastery in California, I went to interview him in Paris. It was a gentleman, a lord in fact, a hat and ways blameless, who endured stoically my questions silly for half an hour. I was 28 years old, already very fond of your discs – all, the guitar is solitary of Songs of Love and Hate up to the synthesizers pirosos and to the choirs female of the 80s, but it was still too new. It is said that, when he was 32 years old and has finally decided to dedicate himself to music, and walked to knock on doors in New York city, and asked him: "Aren’t you a little old for this game?"
The reason because we are always too new to the side of Leonard Cohen is because he looked too old. Already been there, already read, already seen, already lived, already drank, have ever smoked, have already suffered, already meditated – always several years ahead. But not in the distance. – In-depth. "A thousand kisses deep," to quote one of their songs. Cohen does not see farther, but deeper. Has no solutions, nor programs, nor advice to give us. Your disks are not manuals of self-help, which tell us how we should lead our life. In Going Home, speaks of the aspirations of a certain "Leonard", and says: "He wants to write a love song/ An anthem of forgiving/ A manual for living with defeat. > > > > " Cohen does not teach us the way – he comforts us in the walk.
I have No doubt about the disk that would take to a deserted island: Leonard Cohen Live in London, O2 Arena, 17 July 2008. This tour was happy on stage as never before, the communion with the band was perfect, and the songs the best. But it is not just by the songs. It is also for the wonderful conversations with the audience. In the introduction of Ain t no Cure for Love, he explains that he is old, the list the anti-depressants that took to long life, says that he studied the philosophies and the religions, and concludes: but cheerfulness kept breaking through. If you want a happy ending for this text, here the have. In spite of the imperfection of all suffering and of all the failures, the joy insists in appear. <> > > > > There ain’t no cure for love. There is no greater mystery than this. See you soon, Leonard.
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