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
Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau. European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.
Now suzanne takes you hand And she leads you to the river She is wearing rags and feathers From salvation army counters And the sun pours down like honey On our lady of the harbour And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While suzanne holds the mirror And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For shes touched your perfect body with her mind.
Undertow" "I set out one night When the tide was low There were signs in the sky But I did not know I'd be caught in the grip Of the undertow Ditched on a beach Where the sea hates to go With a child in my arms And a chill in my soul And my heart the shape Of a begging bowl
You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children , you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god .
Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
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
Music is the emotional life of most people.
If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.
In the broken places, the light shines through.
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.