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
Well I've seen your flag on the marble arch and love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
In the broken places, the light shines through.
It's not a cry you can hear at night. It's not somebody who has seen the light. It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
Maybe there's a god above but the only thing I learned from love was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you.
Why don't you try to do without him, why don't you try to live alone? Do you really need his hands for your passion? Do you really need his heart for your throne? Do you need his labor for your baby? Do you need his beast for the bone? Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady? I know that you can make it, you can make it on your own.
You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well really, what's it to you? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah
It's the notion that there is no perfection - that there is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still there is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances.
Music is the emotional life of most people.
If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.
It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was a real mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was but one mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed and changed into itself over and over.
My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico García Lorca.
I taught him how to dress. He taught me how to live forever.
All the Men will be sailors then, untill the sea shall free them.
Growing old becomes clear to you at a certain point. I think it's after the age of 70 you realize - you begin to actually be convinced - you're growing older.