Leonard Cohen: From the Midnight Choir to the Tower of Song

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) was a Montreal-born writer, poet, and musician. Around the time of the release of his record The Future (1992), Cohen was likened to an Old Testament prophet by a Canadian reviewer. And this might not be too far off. Cohen's lyrics and retrospective asides seem to dance around the idea that he's a mouthpiece for the Divine as well as a humble guy, just like anyone else.¹

Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen - NFB

Along these lines, Cohen seemed uniquely content bridging his Jewish heritage with decades of deep Buddhist practice. In fact, he spent five years in formal seclusion at the Mount Baldy Zen Center, eventually being ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk in 1996 and taking the Dharma name Jikan, meaning "silence."²

Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen, Donald Brittain & Don Owen, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

Cohen lost his father when he was nine years old, but was left with a modest trust fund so he didn't have to worry about money in his younger days. He bought a house on the Greek island of Hydra and spent his formative years there, an influence discernible in much of his early music and writing. A legendary ladies' man in his youth, he openly chronicled his forays into drink, sex, religion, and whatever else might have sustained him. He once held the unconventional notion that the Nazis were defeated by music, and he often spoke of a creative spark that apparently those "who are there" know about and those "who are not there" do not.

The following lyrics from "Bird on the Wire" (1969) speak for themselves:

Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way
To be free.

And from "Suzanne" (1967):

And Jesus was a sailor... Only drowning men could see him.

In "Tower of Song" (1988) he sings:

Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor.

And in The Future (1992) he takes an even darker route:

I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

However, The Future also contains humorous and hopeful elements.

In 2005, Cohen was bilked out of his fortune by his former manager, Kelley Lynch, who stripped his retirement accounts clean and left him virtually penniless. Yet this tragedy triggered an unexpected turn. Forced back onto the road out of financial necessity in 2008, Cohen embarked on a massive global comeback tour. Performing three-hour concerts with nimble energy and his trademark fedora, these shows became masterclasses in performance, cementing his status as a beloved elder statesman of song.

This late-career renaissance yielded a remarkable string of acclaimed records. Following Old Ideas (2012), Cohen released Popular Problems (2014) to coincide with his 80th birthday, followed by the album You Want It Darker (2016), produced by his son, Adam Cohen. Released shortly before his death on November 7, 2016, the title track featured the line "Hineni, hineni... I'm ready, my Lord."

He left behind vocal recordings that his family and collaborators later used to complete the posthumous release Thanks for the Dance in 2019.

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¹ See for example, "Going Home" from his album Old Ideas » New Yorker Poem

² Cohen often poked fun at his reputation as a holy man, famously remarking: "I was known as a monk. I shaved my head and wore robes and got up very early. I hated everyone."