Marcia Pally - From This Broken Hill I Sing to You: God, Sex, and Politics in the Work of Leonard Cohen

From This Broken Hill I Sing to You

From This Broken Hill I Sing to You

God, Sex, and Politics in the Work of Leonard Cohen

Marcia Pally

T&T CLARK

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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First published in Great Britain 2021

Copyright Marcia Pally, 2021

Marcia Pally has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

Excerpt(s) from Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen, copyright 1966 by Leonard Cohen. Used by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Excerpt(s) from The Favorite Game by Leonard Cohen, copyright 1963, copyright renewed 1991 by Leonard Cohen. Used by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

For legal purposes the constitute an extension of this copyright page.

Cover image: Leonard Cohen performing on stage, Congresgebouw, The Hague, Netherlands, 5th August 1993. Photo by Niels van Iperen/Getty Images.

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ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-9477-5

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Contents

My first thanks goes to the students in my first seminar on the theology of Leonard Cohen, taught at Humboldt University-Berlin in 2018. Their insights, curiosity about Cohen, and sheer enthusiasm were part of what convinced me to continue my research into his theology and theodicy. The students and I are indebted to Prof. Dr. Rolf Schieder, who proposed the idea for the course, and to Prof. Dr. Torsten Meireis, who also contributed to our teaching.

I would like to thank the many people cited in the book who have spent much time with Leonard Cohens work and written about it with insight and commitment. Parsing Cohen is not so much an academic pursuit as a passion and a grappling with genius that cant be wrestled down.

In particular, I would like to thank Prof. Catherine Keller, Prof. Moshe Halbertal, and Byron Belitsos for their careful attention to the manuscript and for their feedback and assistance. Thanks also to Prof. Susan Eastman for her early support. The book has greatly benefited from their contributions. Also helpful were comments by Prof. David Feltmate, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture , who edited a 2020 article drawn from the book. Thanks as well to the anonymous reviewers whose feedback helped expand and improve the text.

Many thanks to my publisher T&T Clark/Bloomsbury Academic, to my editor Anna Turton, and to all the people at Bloomsbury for their help in bringing this manuscript to the public. Special thanks goes to Yannik Ehmer for especially precise work on the many reference and formatting details necessary in such a book.

For her support throughout the many stages of writing this volume, I thank Pamela Parker. I would like to express my gratitude also to my teachers at the Solomon Schechter School, who were my first guides to thinking about relationship with God and other persons, the two topics grounding this exploration into Cohens theology and theodicy. Sending me to this school was a great gift from my parents, Nettie Rose Pally and Dr. Sidney Pally, and from my grandfather, Isaac Schachter, who insisted on this sort of education, even for girls. In particular, I would like to thank my mother, Nettie, whose soprano voice and piano-playing gave me a lifelong love of music, including Leonard Cohens.

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The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Biblical quotations: All are taken from the NIV (New International Version) of the Bible.

Song Collections cited: (all lyrics in this volume are written by Leonard Cohen unless otherwise specified in the in-sentence parentheses where the song is mentioned).

Songs of Leonard Cohen . 1967. Written by Leonard Cohen. Produced by John Simon. Columbia Records.

Songs from a Room . 1969. Written by Leonard Cohen, Hy Zaret, and Anna Marly. Produced by Bob Johnston. Columbia Records.

Songs of Love and Hate . 1971. Written by Leonard Cohen. Produced by Bob Johnston. Columbia Records.

Live Songs . 1973. Written by Leonard Cohen and Dick Blakeslee. Produced by Bob Johnston. Columbia Records.

New Skin for the Old Ceremony . 1974. Written by Leonard Cohen. Produced by Leonard Cohen and John Lissauer. Columbia Records.

Death of a Ladies Man . 1977. Written by Leonard Cohen. Music and production by Phil Spector. Warner Bros. (Columbia, reissue).

Recent Songs . 1979. Written by Leonard Cohen, John Lissauer, and Antoine Grin-Lajoie-Traditional. Produced by Leonard Cohen and Henry Lewy. Columbia Records.

Various Positions . 1984. Written by Leonard Cohen. Produced by John Lissauer. Columbia, Passport.

Famous Blue Raincoat . 1986. Written by Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes, and Bill Elliott. Produced by C. Roscoe Beck and Jennifer Warnes. Cypress.

Im Your Man . 1988. Written by Leonard Cohen, Sharon Robinson, Jeff Fisher, and Federico Garca Lorca. Produced by Leonard Cohen, Roscoe Beck, Jean-Michel Reusser, and Michel Robidoux. Columbia.

The Future . 1992. Written by Leonard Cohen, Sharon Robinson, Frederick Knight, and Irving Berlin. Produced by Leonard Cohen, Steve Lindsey, Leanne Unger, Rebecca De Mornay, and Yoav Goren. Columbia.

More Best of Leonard Cohen . 1997. Written by Leonard Cohen, Sharon Robinson, and Federico Garcia Lorca. Complication album. Columbia.

Ten New Songs . 2001. Written by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson. Produced by Sharon Robinson. Columbia.

Tour of 1979 . 2001. Written by Leonard Cohen. Produced by Bob Metzger and Sharon Robinson. Sony Music Entertainment.

Dear Heather . 2004. Written by Leonard Cohen, Lord Byron, F. R. Scott, Redd Stewart, and Pee Wee King. Produced by Leanne Ungar, Sharon Robinson, Anjani Thomas, Henry Lewy, and Leonard Cohen. Columbia.