Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQis a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. His work has explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received a Princess of Asturias Awards for literature...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth21 September 1934
CityWestmount, Canada
CountryCanada
Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly.
Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you don't know what to say.
And may my bronze name / touch always her thousand fingers / grow brighter with her weeping / until I am fixed like a galaxy / and memorized / in her secret and fragile skies.
Love is the only engine of survival
It’s a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too.
If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask. If you want a different kind of love I'll wear a mask. If you want to strike me down in anger here I stand. If you want a partner in life take my hand. I'm your man.
I will not be held like a drunkard / under the cold tap of facts
I’ll be marching through the morning, Marching through the night, Moving 'cross the borders Of My Secret Life.
Ah, grief makes us precise!
Please make me empty, if I'm empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I'm not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty.
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm
Does anybody have a cigarette? I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been looking forward to [it] for about 30 years.
Fare thee well my nightingale, I lived but to be near you. Thow you are singing somewhere still I can no longer hear you.