Leonard Cohen Here
Poet, Artist Entertains at Homecoming Show
By Dave Wagner
It would be very difficult for Leonard Cohen to be less than 37 years old (he was graduated from McGill University in 1955). But he doesn't look it, sing it, think it, or write it. He SOUNDS like a man in his 20's, with a voice gently laced with post-existential pain and a bag full of lyrics that must have been shuttled from late night greasy spoon realities.
But his age doesn't really matter. He is, unquestionably a poet, an artist, and a man of letters.
When he stepped to the makeshift stage of the U. W. Fieldhouse Friday night however, he carried with him the casual, nearly nonchalant attitude of a famous "folk singer" (as he was billed) who was intent on nothing more profound than the completion of his national round of appearances.
It was a little bit of a shock to see the author of Beautiful Losers, one of the most perceptive and best written novels this reviewer has read in some time, knock around the stage like a rock here (sic) [hero?] with no music to support him, or a poet with only his safest material to assuage his notion of his audiences' notions.
As it was, one had to be satisfied with competence and near-excellence rather than the kind of revelations Cohen dealt in - as though they were small change - in his second novel.
There must have been many in the audience of four or five thousand young people shaking their heads that a man not only capable of, but apparently possessed by wondrous insight, along with a command of the English language would put on a merely satisfying show. After a point, one simply had to accept the evidence that Cohen's revelations as a poet are too intimate and particular to allow for easy expression in a crowd that size.
That may be one reason he has had such unqualified success with his books and recordings - they are anything but public media.
All this may be a rather oblique variety of praise. But it is intended primarily to encourage whatever fans he may have in this city to look about for his writings. Without them, nothing falls into place as easily as this concert apparently did.
When he did come out, Cohen sang "Solidarity Forever" as his first number, an unlikely choice but a pleasant one. "Anyone ever hear of the Wobblies?" he asked. There was only a scant rustling of applause, nothing like the hoards of undergraduate history majors he evidently expected for an anti-war Homecoming. The old union song was interspersed with blues choruses on the acoustic guitar, and to the general surprise, it worked.
After that, Cohen waxed anecdotal for a few minutes. He described Madison as Brigadoon "with traces of Havana." Like many of his songs, one didn't have to grasp the meaning of the language altogether, it still made sense on one level or another.
After the lukewarm reception for his expressions of solidarity, Cohen retreated into his more famous numbers from the albums saying, "When I get too far from women, I get involved in politics." There was a more enthusiastic mustering of applause for this statement, though one would have been equally hard-pressed to explain exactly what he meant.
He performed "Marianne," "Shelter," and several other pieces before a cry rang out from the back of the Fieldhouse that people without the price of admission were still waiting outside. "Let them in!" Cohen shouted, and then improvised a 5-minute chorus on the phrase urging the crew-cut ushers to do just that. (They did.)
Another interesting moment was a song called "The Marriage of Joan of Arc," dedicated to Janis Joplin, the late and great blues singer from the swamps of Texas.
Aside from the Joplin tribute, which was lovingly done, the concert continued in a low-key atmosphere. One of the few moments of real musical (as opposed to lyrical) excitement came when Charley Daniels, the bassist of the group backing Cohen, joined the singer in a Kentucky backwater number called, in the refrain, "Tonight We'll Be Fine (For Awhile)." Daniels hefted a tiny-looking violin to the chin of his roughly 220 pound frame and squeezed out a real country sound.
Daniels was the only sideman in the group who seemed close to being a musician rather than a close friend of the vocalist. At times, the whole affair sounded like it was being played on poor sound equipment, like a poorly engineered LP.
But it didn't really matter, Cohen, with the slightly sharp quaver in his songs and the "talky" rattle in his throat, is essentially a literary genius. And that's enough.
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