O Cohen, My Cohen!

   This past week, Leonard Cohen passed away.
   I knew, of course, that this was eventually going to happen and I also knew, deep inside, that this was possibly imminent. Leonard himself, reflecting on the recent death of his longtime muse and love, Marianne Ihlen, seemed aware that he soon would be joining her. As much as I was intellectually prepared for this event, emotionally it was still a numbing moment.
   The world responded quickly, as it invariable does these days, and much was written about the poet and singer's legacy. Many tributes and much reminiscing occurred and his name has now been added to the seemingly endless list of musical icons who have passed away in this sad year.
   If you know me well, then you know how important Leonard Cohen was to me. My love for the man's writing and music grew out of the crucible of teenage hormonal angst we almost all found ourselves dealing with at that age. For me, this occurred back in the late sixties.
   I was not depressed or suicidal or filled with undue anxiety at the time but I did find myself torn in many directions and wanting desperately to be a man of the world when, in fact, I wasn't even a man of the subdivision. Finding my way with the girls was a constant state of struggle and rejection (or at least what felt like rejection) was the constant hidden jungle trap. On top of everything else, as much as I wasn't dealing with suicidal depression, someone else in my family was.
    So it was during this part of my life that I discovered Leonard Cohen.
   I was as prone to listening to the music of the day as anyone else was and there was a steady stream of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Doors engaging me on a daily basis. I liked it all, for sure, but then I heard Cohen's "Suzanne" for the first time.

   I had never heard anything like it before. The voice, the lyrics...they were like nothing else playing on the radio those days and I was drawn to them like no other. 
   Part of the attraction was Cohen's imperfect voice. There were no histrionics employed and the monotone he effected made it seem as though he was just one of us, one of the strugglers in the world who was trying to figure things out the same way we all were. As much as anything, though,  it was the lyrics which stood out. He talked about mysticism and sexuality and Jesus, for Christ's sake, all in the same song! The intimate nature of the music made it easy to feel as though it was only directed at me, and not the surrounding, acne-riddled masses.
   As soon as I was able, I bought the album "Songs of Leonard Cohen", playing it over and over. My parents were somewhat aghast that I would so readily immerse myself in what they saw as nothing more than monotonous melancholia. I, myself, was unable to adequately explain the attraction---apart from the fact that all teenagers seem to be  drawn to what their parents aren't.
   My love of Cohen wasn't easily shared. It probably didn't help that "Suzanne", partly because of its Canadian roots,  soon became part of the high school English curriculum. We studied it, for goodness' sake. Picked it apart. This was not an exercise most of my peers particularly enjoyed and the fact that I actually doted on Cohen never scored me any points on the popularity scale.
   On the wall in my bedroom, the posterised Cohen soon appeared. On another part of the wall, mounted like a shield, hung the cracked and broken top of a plastic birdbath. This birdbath and I had had a run-in in a neighbour's backyard and its jagged edge had made my leg bleed profusely. With my neighbour's blessing, I retrieved it, detached the top, and positioned it in a place of honour above my bed. Not far from this, I had also mounted a chunk of 2x8. Attached to this piece of wood was were samples of the same wires and staples that morticians use to ensure their clients' mouths stay firmly closed after death. An undertaker had once come to my public school as part of a "careers" presentation and had demonstrated their use. Afterward, I rather boldly asked him if he had any further use for this piece of wood. He did not and it came home with me. This then was the room to which I retreated to listen to Cohen in the dark, for hours. Very little wonder that my parents feared for me.
   The feeling that I had at the time, though, was that listening to Leonard Cohen was somehow or other saving me. It was almost as if the angst and confusion were being shared and, in the sharing, dissipated. It was not actually therapy but sort of was.
   I bought all of Cohen's early albums and soon along came "Songs of Love and Hate". I still consider this to be Cohen's masterpiece. I so clearly remember lying there in the dark, with headphones on, listening to "Dress Rehearsal Rag", an epic-length song from that album. Essentially it is a

contemplation of regret and loss in which suicidal images are very prevalent. It was easy to identify with the protagonist and feel, similarly to a good movie, that you were right there living his life with him. Then, just when you think it's possible he might actually end it all, suddenly "the cameras pan, the stand in stunt man, dress rehearsal rag, it's just the dress rehearsal rag." To me, this seemed like some form of redemption, that you could be depressed and contemplating ending it all (possibly even practising) but that, in the end, it perhaps was just as acceptable to carry on.
   As an adolescent, then, I let Cohen share the dark with me. As an older man, I allowed Leonard Cohen to age right in front (and only somewhat ahead) of me--sharing his joy, bewilderment, anger, longing and passion right up to the end.  The fact that he could still get the women as he aged also couldn't help but endear him to me

                                                   I knew that he would be gone some day and wondered how this would affect me. Of course, I have been able to share him with many over the past week or so, thanks to the world we live in these days. In an age of instant gratification and lightning-swift communication, though, I was bemused to discover that Leonard Cohen had actually passed a full three days before the world found out about it. This, and that fact that he was buried in a simple pine box next to his parents, helped to add  a little  perspective to the self-deprecatory man he always was.
   A very complex and simple man.