Harry Freedman - Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius

For Dylan Lev, welcome to the world

Contents

The idea came for this book came when I was driving along the A40 towards the North Circular and Hallelujah came onto the radio. Like many of us, I knew the song well, but for some reason I listened to the lyrics a little more carefully than usual. A penny dropped when I heard about King Davids secret chord, and as I listened more closely I realized that the song was crammed full of allusions to biblical and rabbinic mythology. So I am grateful to whoever the DJ was who played Hallelujah at that time; unfortunately I dont remember the date, time or even the radio station. But Im sure you know who you are.

More specifically, I am grateful to the biographers and scholars whose work was invaluable in helping me to write this book. To Ira Nadel, Sylvie Simmons and Jeff Burger, whose volumes were constant companions. To Jarkko Arjatsalo, whose website leonardcohenfiles.com is a tremendous resource, immaculately constructed and more comprehensive than one could possibly imagine. To John MacKenna for telling me about the requiem he wrote with Leonard Cohen, and to Leonard Cohens manager, Robert Kory, who generously guided me through the process of gaining permissions to reproduce his lyrics. I am also, of course, grateful to Katie Cacouris and Tucker Smith of The Wylie Agency for their help with permissions, to David Beal of Special Rider Music, Victoria Fox of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Kate Pool at the Society of Authors.

As always, this book would not have been possible without the support of my wife, Karen, who encouraged the idea of the book from the outset and challenged me when she thought I was getting too carried away. And of course my wonderful publishers at Bloomsbury Continuum: Robin Baird-Smith, Jamie Birkett, Julia Mitchell, Amy Greaves, Rosie Parnham, Penny Liechti and Rachel Nicholson, who I never manage to thank properly for their confidence, encouragement and positivity. This is now the fifth Bloomsbury book I have written, and on every one they have been a pleasure and a delight to work with.

Few contemporary songwriters have had their work dissected as minutely as Leonard Cohen. His lyrics have been picked apart innumerable times, in books and articles, on film and TV, in pubs, around dinner tables and on internet forums. PhD theses have been submitted exploring his philosophy, his impact on culture, his image as prophet and priest and much more. His work has been analysed from many different perspectives: psychologically, mystically, philosophically, spiritually, religiously and, not infrequently, incomprehensibly.

I have tried to do something different in this book. I have not attempted to guess what was going on in his mind when he wrote a particular song. He was said to be reluctant to encourage that. Nor have I dwelt in any greater depth on what motivated him. Rather, I have focused on his extensive use of biblical and religious traditions ideas drawn from Judaism and Christianity that helped shape his identity and the way he made sense of the world. I have tried to demonstrate what his sources were, what their original context was, what the stories and ideas that lay behind them were and how Cohen harnessed them for his own purposes. The book is as much an exploration of his sources as of his work itself.

Leonard Cohens work is so multifaceted that many of his songs are capable of more than one interpretation. Few of his pieces reflect a single theme, and hardly any originate from one idea alone. Most contain a wide range of images and allusions. Because this is a book about what lies behind his work, rather than an analysis of his compositions in their totality, I only look at those bits of his work which draw on the religious traditions the book explores. I skip lines or verses in the songs I am discussing if they do not contain this kind of material. The lines and verses that I discuss are printed in the text in bold type.

Cohens knowledge of the Bible and religious folklore was profound: nearly everything he wrote contains something that touches on a religious idea, even if the song is in no way religious. It hasnt been practical to include all such glancing references. For example, Tower of Song , on the 1988 album Im Your Man , is a humorous piece about a musician who is losing his mojo. There is nothing particularly religious about the song, other than the title, which refers to an obscure kabbalistic legend about seven towers in heaven, one of which was called the Tower of Song. King David was permitted to enter it, so long as he was singing. We can assume that Cohen is referring to this legend, because he mentions twenty-seven angels who tie him to a table in the tower. But since there is nothing else to interest us mystically or religiously in the song, I havent included it in the book.

For reasons of space I have not included any of the many poems that Cohen wrote. Not even Book of Mercy , his collection of psalms. I have concentrated on his music because that is what most people know him for. Maybe one day someone may decide to do something similar with his poetry.

Because it is possible to interpret so much of Leonard Cohens work in more than one way, the opinions I state in this book can only be my personal view. You probably wont agree with everything I write. In fact I hope you dont; his work always holds out the likelihood of new insights. But hopefully some of what I have written will strike a chord, encouraging you to think about Leonard Cohens music in a novel fashion.

After an introductory chapter on Leonard Cohens influences I have divided the book into four parts, with a certain amount of overlap between them. The first, Bible as Allegory, explores songs where he has reshaped a biblical narrative to give it a new meaning, often with a contemporary relevance. Ideas from the Bible is where he challenges the Bible, or our understanding of it, compares different approaches and attaches new meanings to biblical themes we often take for granted. In Heaven and Earth I look at the mystical traditions that evolved out of the Bible, to the mechanics of Creation and the mysteries of the human soul. And finally, Prayer is just that: conversations with whatever we conceive of as above, whether that be a conventional idea of God or something more ethereal.