Out walking around one evening in early spring trying to clear my head, I came to a little movie house off Clark Street and stood there staring at the marquee:
8:00: Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, a documentary
It was only about seven, so I went walking around some more, at a snappier pace now. I was excited. A movie about Leonard Cohen!
I thought about the first time I’d ever heard him, or even heard of him. It was in a modern poetry class, taught by Dr. Ledbetter, who was young and wore turtleneck sweaters. One morning he played a tape for us, something by a Canadian poet-singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, a song called “Suzanne.” First you heard a pensive guitar for a few notes, and then this nasal droning voice began singing quietly:
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river …
The voice went on, in its intimate way, about tea and oranges from China, Jesus in his lonely wooden tower, the sun pouring down like honey, while Suzanne in rags and feathers held the mirror …
I didn’t know exactly what he was getting at but the song almost put me into a trance, it was so beautiful and mysterious and sad. Afterwards, Dr. Ledbetter broke it all down for us, everyone scribbling in their notebooks, but I was wishing he would just leave it alone.
The record store owner I spoke to later over the phone had never heard of any Leonard Cohen. “What is he?”
“How do you mean?”
“Folk? Rock? Blues? R and B?”
“Hard to say. He’s Canadian, I know that.”
He took my number and a week or so later he phoned and said he had something called The Songs of Leonard Cohen.
What a perfect title.
And what a perfect face he had. It was on the cover, a perfect poet’s face, long and sad and deeply sincere. I ran with it all the way back to my dorm, and was so glad Larry wasn’t in.
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river …
I walked up and down between the two beds, loving every song, every sad lovely one of them, both sides. Some of the lyrics gave me trouble, a lot of them in fact, but I understood his voice, the place it came from, deep inside, deep down, where it hurt:
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn …
I was playing the whole thing over again when Larry came barging in. I said to him, “Hi! Hey, what’s up?” I felt embarrassed, like I’d been caught.
“What the hell is that?” he said, meaning the music.
“Oh, just … something somebody gave me. I was just checking it out.”
“Sounds like he’s fucking dying, man.”
I laughed. “Doesn’t he?”
“Somebody gave you that?”
“Some chick.” I took it off.
After that, I only played it when I knew for certain Larry wouldn’t be back for a long while, Saturday nights for example.
Since then, Leonard Cohen had put out two more albums just as good, cutting just as deep, and he still meant just as much to me, with his off-key voice and his long sad poet’s face.
When I got back to the theater it was still a little early and I hung around outside, smoking. Maybe there’d be a small, sad-eyed girl in a raincoat and we would recognize each other immediately and go in and sit together.
She didn’t show. Hardly anyone did. I went in just before it started and took an aisle seat in the back. The lights were lowered. I sat up straighter.
The movie turned out to be pretty old, all about the early Leonard Cohen, before the songs, when he was still just a poet. It showed a crowded city street, where I picked him out right away, in a trench coat, hands deep in the pockets, and as the camera moved in closer the narrator said, “Leonard Cohen is a poet.”
It showed him crossing the street.
“He is a constant wanderer.”
It showed him gazing at a female mannequin.
“He has an enormous curiosity …”
It showed him gazing at a movie poster.
“… and a hypersensitivity.”
It showed him gazing at the gray sky.
I didn’t understand—were we supposed to think he didn’t notice the camera a few feet away from his long sad face?
“Cohen works his talent very hard.”
He was at a desk now, laboring over a poem.
“He writes for several hours a day.”
He looked off, tapping his mouth with his pen.
“He writes …”
He wrote something.
“… and rewrites.”
He crumpled up the paper and began again.
I couldn’t take any more of this.
Outside I went walking around, walking fast, head down. But the camera had followed me out, the narrator intoning, “He is a constant wanderer …”
I headed back to my apartment. When I got in, I set a pan of water on the stove and dropped a hot dog into it. While I was waiting I put some music on, his second album, Songs from a Room, just to see.
Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir …
Well, I still liked the guy. How could you not? He probably knew he was partly full of shit, probably knew better than anyone.
I have tried, in my way, to be free.