Comme Un Guerrier
(Translated: Come on Gorilla)
By Christian Fevret
Translated by Sophie Miller
I. An Impossible Situation
Your new album was scheduled to come out in the beginning of 1991 but now we are told not to expect it before 1992. What's going on?
I can count myself lucky if it's only a year late (laughs). In this particular case, I was working on it last summer when my son had a very serious car accident. He stayed in the hosptial for 4 months. During those months there I stayed with him in the hospital; I lost all inspiration to work on the record. Now I have to bring the pieces together. But even if the accident hadn't happened it would have been late because once again I feel the songs aren't finished even though I thought they were. I still feel that an easy way to do all this must exist but I have yet to find it.
How do you explain that you have worked on some of the songs for many years?
We can say something is wrong (laughs). My brain, when I write, is completely confused. It struggles at the bottom of a well, trying to find something that will give the song permanence in this world. To bring a song into existence seems difficult. Most successes, however, are simple. But I have not found a simple way to do things. I keep searching. Just because something takes a lot of time does not mean that it is not urgent, it is urgent every minute. That's why this situation is impossible.
Is it perhaps an obsession with perfection?
Perfection is much too much a luxury for me. It's at a level much more urgent than perfection. It is survival. Personally and for my work. How do you escape the cycle? How can I find a sufficient voice to give life to these songs? It is a situation where luxury has no place, where only urgency is concerned.
In what ways does this process differ from that of your first album?
The first album was equally as difficult to do. I failed a couple of times. I was so out of touch with my songs that I went to see a hypnotist in New York City. I was desperate and crazy at that point. I told her I wanted to remember what these songs were talking about: "Can you put me in a deep trance and order me to remember?" She tried but I started to laugh and then left.
Was the process faster when you worked on your poems or books during the '50s and '60s?
At certain times the process went very quickly but I rewrote my first novel, The Favourite Game, four or five times. There were always difficulties but right now things seem particularly slow. It doesn't matter to me if it is slow and unpleasant as long as the result is good. When the songs are finished, I feel good. So I don't complain. When I look at these songs, "Hallelujah," "Dance Me To The End Of Love," I know what I put into them; they have a certain sense of completeness that gives me pleasure. I know they exist in a correct form. When I was young, certain poems came out very fast but I think I always rewrote and rethought most of my material, even then.
Was your writing always linked to the notion of survival?
Like all real work, in the beginning it is peaches and then you discover it's like marriage. Maybe the first poems of love, "With Anne gone, whose eyes compare with the morning sun / Not that I did compare but I do compare now that she is gone" came out pretty spontaneously. When I look at the first book of poems that I wrote when I was fifteen, if I remember correctly, I don't know why I followed another path. I would love to be one of those singers capable of writing a song in 15 minutes. A few years ago I helped out at a Dylan concert in Paris, afterward we went out to get coffee together. He mentioned one of my songs that he played on stage, "Hallelujah". He asked me "How long did it take you to write it?" "Oh, I don't know. 2 years maybe, at least." Then I mentioned one of the verses from Slow Train Coming, "I and I". "And for that, how long?" He answered "15 minutes" (laughs).
II. Faire Honneur á Son Monde
You're from a deeply religious and traditional Jewish family. Was your lifestyle in contradiction to that tradition?
Before my work was known, my family was a little dismayed by my choice to become a writer. But my father died when I was young so there was no one to fight me. There were a lot of factors that put pressure on me to change my mind but I didn't feel it. My mother said to me several times "Be content to follow your instinct." There was a tendency for me to affirm a life inside me.
Did you have an idealized image of your ancestors or your relatives?
I strongly felt that my family was conscious of representing something important. For example, my name, Cohen, means "rabbi". I had the impression that my family took this literally, that they felt that in a way they were rabbis by heredity, that they were part of a cast of rabbis. They were conscious of their own destinies and of their responsibility to the community. They founded synagogues, hospitals and newspapers. I felt like I had received a heritage that concerned my own destiny in the world. I suppose that without that feeling, no matter how crazy, I would never have written a song like "First We Take Manhattan". I think it comes from that line of thought, from that pompous notion. Even though the irony of the song may show that I overcame the unhealthy element of such considerations.
Was this sense of destiny considered a privileged relation with God?
I never heard God discussed. God was mentioned in prayer. Something they took very seriously, on the other hand, was the family. Faithfulness, loyalty to the past--those things were not mystical.
What were the conditions of your family when you arrived in Canada?
Around 1960. My father's family came from the part of Poland that is now Russia. My mother came from Lithuania in the 20s. 10 years after the revolution. She was 18 or 19. Their ancestors were very different even though they were both from the same branch of Judaism. My mother married my father in 1927. She never spoke of Lithuania. In her circle, it was very important to be Canadian and to make references to the past disappear. There were no feelings of nostalgia. Even though she spoke with a slight accent, I never felt that for my mother something had been lost forever, abandoned. It is surprising but I never think of my family. I never think of it anymore. My mother's presence is very strong in my heart, particularly since she died. One thing that I owe to my family is that it exposed me to a form of culture and thought but always in moderation. There were none of the fanatical elements that I see in many other similar families. I am grateful to my family. I don't feel that it was oppressive, or that I missed something. There was always fresh air. I thought the people in my family were good people. What I liked about them was that they were decent, honest, friendly; I liked the way they went about their business, their life. I'm not talking about their personal relationships with their wives and children. Those were as disastrous as in any family. But they were honest people. They brought honor to the world.
Your mother never spoke of her past, of anti-Semitism?
Rarely. Of course there were persecutions. But I never felt it in an oppressive or threatening way. I think that her internal life, and this goes for most of the people in my family, was more intense than her historical life. In a way, they lived removed from the world. Of course they were affected by what had happened to them. The fact that they had to leave, cross the ocean, go through all kinds of tests...and then came privilege and comfort. But I don't think the life they lived needed a history. She was intensely personal.
Did they miss their homelands?
I never felt that they did. They were very patriotic. My father and his brother were officers in WWI, they were in the Canadian legion. They were loyal to the Queen of the British Empire but at the same time very proud of their Jewish heritage, devoted to the establishment of Jewish institutions in Canada.
Were you conscious of the comfort in which you lived? Of the money and the family prestige?
It was not the kind of big family that owed everything to its fortune. There was not all that much money, no outward signs of wealth. They never really paid much attention to their money. They believed that they were part of a blood line, that they had certain artistic and cultural obligations within their small community. Today we would consider them typically bourgeois.
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
One sister who is 5 years older than me.
III. He Was Weak, He Died
On this day I have already lived longer than my father. He died at the age of 52. For myself, at 52, I feel that I don't know anything. When men are young, they don't forgive. The world is very competitive. As you grow older, you forgive your rivals, your children and everyone else. The closer you get to the end of the race, the more generous you are with the other runners. My father and I would be very close today...oh it would have been difficult for him to see me walking around Montreal with a guitar. That wasn't what he had in mind for his son. But he was a gentleman. He left me a few of his books of poetry. Most of them had never been read or even opened but he had them. But I don't think those things were very influential in my life. I don't think about my childhood much. I don't think that it's a legitimate explanation of one's life. I think that in order to survive one must be reborn, one must overcome one's childhood, the injustices, and recognize the privileges. You can't use your past as an alibi. In the Orient they say "to awaken". The Christians say "to be reborn". Whatever the metaphor, I think there comes a moment when we must do it if we want to survive, have self-respect, and take advantage of our new circumstances that we have not yet even touched. The people who die are those who refuse to recognize their new life circumstance and continue to use the old one as an excuse for their shame or laziness. Of course one learns strategies and techniques of survival as a child and I'm not saying one must throw away all they have acquired. But I think there comes a time when the old strategies stop working and life crumbles. New circumstances appear.
How did you react to your father's death?
I was happy to have his knife and his revolver. I was proud. I didn't feel a profound sense of loss, maybe because he was very ill throughout my entire childhood. He was at the hospital often. It seemed natural that he died. He was weak and he died...maybe my heart is cold. I wept when my dog died. But when my father died I had the feeling that that was the way it should be. In a way, it wasn't my business, it didn't concern me. Larger forces control all that. We can't argue with those forces. I'm not saying it was great but it seemed normal to me.
You spoke of his library. Was he an educated man?
Not an intellectual but I would say his heart was cultured. I think he read Reader's Digest a lot. My house wasn't cultured in the European sense; where people played violin and exchanged ideas. We didn't have those kinds of discussions, philosophical or spiritual. It wasn't necessary since we had such strong religious practices and beliefs. Religion structured our life.
Daily life was structured by the religious calendar?
It was the decor, the background. We celebrated the Sabbath every Friday night. Even when we were older we had to be home. We lit candles, which I still do. We said prayers, we went to the synagogue Saturday morning, to Sunday school, to Hebrew school 3 times a week. All this happened in conjunction with a normal Canadian education. Both school and the synagogue were important. The two institutions were equal. But the word religion was never used. It was a people who inherited a calendar in which they swam, it was their natural element. They didn't make a big deal out of it, they weren't fanatics. It was all very ordinary and friendly. It was mentioned no more than a fish mentions the presence of water.
Were you interested in the imagery or the language of religion?
No, I had no particular interest in religion except a couple of times when we went to hear a choir. That gave me shivers down my spine. Besides those few very rare moments, it all seemed very boring to me. I was bored by going to the synagogue and Hebrew school. I was definitely not a child seized by emotion in the presence of sacred objects. Not at all. I wasn't even seduced by the words or the language. Of course during certain moments, when the religious melody was particularly beautiful, one became conscious of a certain dignity, a certain solemnity. Nothing too profound but perhaps in the middle of all that, part of the solemnity, of that incantation, of that dignity, touched me. Later I became aware of something very beautiful and sacred because these people united in the name of something they found above greed or ambition. But I wasn't aware of being touched by it at the time.
Nevertheless, did religion give you certain principles that you still have today?
To meet others, or yourself, in the name of something mysterious and glorious has a significance. We understand that something important happens. But it is difficult to put your finger on it; you're not taught to identify it. When you read the Torah, you must not touch it with your finger. You must use a small metal finger, you follow the words with that silver finger. You don't really want to touch it; that would be pointless. Like Jesus said "When 2 or 3 of you unite in my name"...whatever it signifies, we understand instinctively that there is a harmony that takes place above conventional life that illuminates and encourages you to give yourself over to it, that permits you to embrace something you can't identify. I began to develop an appetite for those moments, to be able to find them in many circumstances.
What did your mother do?
She cared for my father because he was ill. She was a nurse. During the war she volunteered at the Red Cross. She was kind and generous with her service. She sung a lot, she loved that. When I learned how to play the guitar, sometimes she sang with us. Often we went to restaurants in Montreal and my mother came and sang. I played Russian tunes and she sang in Russian.
Were you attracted to music?
Not particularly, it simply made up part of my surroundings. I liked to sing. When my friends and I were 15, I took up guitar. My friend took up the banjo. At night we would play and drink. My mother joined us often. But I didn't feel it was my destiny or my future career.
What were you interest in at that age?
It wasn't thought to be a good idea to be passionate about anything. Our favorite activities were the following: going to the movies, learning songs, going to Sunday school. It was during the war, there was no chewing gum so if you had any, or any chocolate, it was great. Everything we loved had equal value, there was no passion for anything in particular like poetry, literature or music. They weren't even necessities, just the things that surrounded us but without particular significance. My mother would never had said something like "Song is the life of the heart, you must culture the heart with song." This type of discussion didn't exist in my house. I don't even remember a family room, as if it had any distinctiveness. The family room was only there so the inhabitants could lead their secret personal lives, and everything that happened in the world was no concern to the secret personal life that each person led. Obviously this was never said, no one spoke that way. Europe, the war, the social war, the difficult social situation: none of the great realities of the time seemed to touch us. It's only now, because of being questioned, that I am forced to a description of my childhood (laughs)... There didn't seem to be an ideology behind family life. It was a conservative Jewish family, not fanatical; without ideology and dogma, whose life was purely made up of domestic habits and affiliations with the community. Aside from that, there were no pressures on the individual. I never knew of rebellions or conflicts because there was nothing to rebel against. I didn't have anything to renounce my family for. Because, in a sense, nothing was solid. I always feel the same way, nothing was solid. I have no urge to struggle with this world, to take a position. Which gives me a lot of liberty, in the extreme gives me the material I have in hand.
IV. Girls
How were you considered as a child?
I remember reading the report from a camp counselor. He said I was a nice boy, a leader by nature (laughs)...
He also mentioned your leadership spirit, the care which you gave to your appearance, your social conscience, your intelligence and your sense of humor?
What age was I, eleven (laughs)? I never read all that. I just gave some papers to my biographers that I found. That becomes me (laughs). In any case, I don't remember being aware of all that. I always thought that I was tritely oblivious (obviously annoyed).
He also spoke of ennui, a general disinterest for the daily routine of life.
Really? That sounds right. "Ennui", really? That's great (laughs). I was often bored (cracks up)...what surprises me is that it was so evident so early in my life (laughs). I have no idea what he is talking about specifically but it seems justified. I thought I had kept that hidden...(more and more amused and surprised)...I don't even recall having known boredom. Now I find that justified in light of my current life but I didn't know the seeds were planted so early (laughs).
Your friends never spoke to you about it?
No, it's like bad breath, your best friends never mention it (laughs).
What did you like to do in the vacation camp?
I thought I liked everything, everything... But I was particularly interested by friendships, conversations, and later on, by girls. I accepted our daily activities as a given to which there was no reason to resist. Undoubtedly I was bored by this or that activity, to have to sit down to eat etc...but I accepted it, there was no alternative. Inside that framework I found things that interested me. I definitely loved baseball and all water sports.
When did you begin to think about girls?
At 11, it was a little early. It should have been 14 or 15 maybe... But I think there is a human life that I no longer have (wha--? Did I miss something? -P.) I think I was a human before, before being a songwriter but I don't remember it (smiles). For many years now I have a deep amnesia. I don't seem capable of remembering, of relating to the events of my past. Even to use the words "my past" is an idea which is totally strange to me. I don't have the sensation of possessing a past, one can say there is no past. This is why I find this discussion both interesting and difficult because I must assume that I have a life at this moment.
Did you decide to make your past disappear?
I don't remember any such decision. It totally evaporated in imperceptible degrees. I don't remember any wind particularly warm. I don't have the slightest memory of another being alive during those years, a being who got up in the morning, who had ideas, feelings, aspirations, ambitions, deceptions, strategies... Since I am a seasoned novelist I could probably create such an individual but it would be fiction. And it is definitely fiction. The truth emerges as we speak. Why do I find this difficult and unreal, like a dream? Because I must create this character with whom I have no connection. He is not a part of my life.
You're saying that the only images you retain are those from documents of your surroundings?
Yes, I ran into an old friend from childhood in L.A. He has an extraordinary memory, which I admire and desire. He told me of entire conversations, of things we did together which I had no memory of, none at all. I was there, smug, throughout his entire recollection. He told me things I supposedly said, of attitudes I supposedly had. Me, I don't remember any of it. Erased.
Is that a good thing?
I have no idea because I have nothing to compare it to. When I say it is gone, I mean completely gone. Maybe it will come back to me. But while we speak, I don't feel the weight, the push; I don't feel like I'm its product. For many years now my Canadian editors have asked me to put together a selection of poems. I tried to do it but I found it very difficult. I have no idea what they're talking about so it is very difficult to choose. I told them. "Either we do nothing or we use everything" excepting the ones I can't understand, which are too obscure, to which I don't even remember the code. Here's the truth: my surroundings are now very different from what they were many years ago.
So you don't find this amnesia unfortunate?
No, there is nothing to regret. When I say there is "nothing" to regret I mean literally "nothing". My memory is gone. I don't feel its weight or its direction. There is no past. I am happy to talk about it: I am happy to have discovered why, after all these years, it's so difficult to respond to these questions... It's only right now that I'm beginning to understand (laughs)... I wasn't capable because it didn't exist! (After having spent the last couple minutes contracted leaning on his knees, he smiled, serves himself a glass of water and leans against the back of the chair with a sign of relief)... I feel really relieved now that we have come to that revelation (laughs).
V. How Does One Distinguish Between The Danger and The Dance?
Were you interested by the outside world, the streets, the people in the street?
Very much so. As soon as I could go downtown, I would leave the house in the middle of the night to walk around town. There were cafes, girls, junkies, street life, restaurants. With my small savings I would buy myself a cheese sandwich, listen to the jukebox, watch people, try to meet girls, but that never happened. Not back then (laughs)...I was 13 or 14 years old. I pretended to go to bed and I would sneak out of the house and go into town, it was nothing extraordinary. In general, I was alone. I had a few close friends, in particular, Rosengarten; we went to school together. He's still a close friend. We would drive through Montreal in the evening or along the lake. Just drive and listen to music, the jukebox. I knew what every jukebox in town played.
You said you listened to music with no particular passion. When did you become interested in the jukeboxes?
We liked music, naturally. It wasn't a passion. We started by listening to Flamenco, then we had enough money to buy records, guitars, and we learned folk songs. My friend Rosengarten told me I was crazy. I played and replayed the songs a hundred times, so well that everyone ran away (laughs)... But it seemed completely natural to me. I had bought a small plastic flute. I drove everybody crazy trying to play the song "Old Black Joe" (laughs).
When did you become interested in literature and poetry?
The first poet I liked was Federico Garcia Lorca. It was the first time I read poetry that touched me. Except a poem written by a Canadian during WWI. I fell in love with Lorca's poetry. I think I came across him by chance while leafing through a book at a used book store. That world seemed very familiar, the language was very accessible; I felt that it was the purpose of language. It was alive. Like folk music bathed in moonlight. I liked it a lot. That's why I was so happy to do a translation for my last album of "Take This Waltz," a homage I took very seriously. I wanted to give something back. Later I discovered William Butler Yeats and for a while I was interested by poetry. My friends tell me that we played incessantly with an English anthology of poetry. They would open it to a random page, read me a line and I had to complete the poem. I had a good memory at the time but only for that.
Did these discoveries immediately give you the desire to write?
I wanted to respond to these poems. Every poem that touches you is like a call that needs a response. One wants to respond with one's own story. Novels tend to leave me silent. You live with a novel for awhile, you become, yourself, part of the novel. I never felt the need to respond to novels. But in poems, this formation of language coincided with something inside me, with my soul. This type of speed and agility.
Did you need to keep this passion to yourself or did you share it with others?
Deep friendships are born on mutual interest. But the true relation between yourself and that which you love will always be private. Sometimes I take a book of one of my favorite poets... You sigh with satisfaction knowing you're with someone that you love. You relax in the company of that soul. These relationships are wonderful, very nourishing.
Was your relationship with poetry very different from your relationship with music?
No, it was the same thing when I listened to Edith Piaf or Ray Charles. I listened to them over and over again.
You had a very strong passion for Ray Charles. More specifically, the man or his songs?
Yeats says "How does one distinguish the dancer from the dance?" or something like that. That man sang from the bottom of his heart, so there was no effort on my part. When we love something it is effortless in the beginning. I loved country music. There wasn't much variety in Montreal. You had to listen to American radio stations like WWVA, West Virginia. Sometimes we could get it at night. Then I got interested in Flamenco. That definitely started in the 50s with pieces like "The Great Pretender".
Did you already have the impression that music was primordial for you?
I never made a big distinction between that which we call a poem and that which we call a song. It was the sort of expression which used beauty, rhythm, authority and truth. All these ideas were implicit. Whether Fats Domino sings "I Found My Thrill On Blueberry Hill" or Yeats writes "Only God could love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair," I made no distinction between the popular expression and the literary expression. I knew that "The Great Pretender" was a very good poem; I made no hierarchies.
How did you learn the guitar?
I began alone just when I met a young Spanish guitarist in the park behind my mother's house. I must have been 15, he was 19. He played wonderfully. I asked him if he could show me the tremolo, certain key changes... But most of all he held his guitar in a certain way, played in a certain way. One day I called on him for a lesson and they told me that he killed himself. Those were the only three guitar lessons I ever had.
How did you end up as part of a trio called the Buckskin Boys?
It must have been around the time of 1951-1952; I was in college. At the time, one entered college at 16 in Montreal and got out at 20. In the photo we must be 17 or 18. There was Mike, who lived on the same street as me, and Terry. Mike had some contacts with the church and the school. He said we could play there, make some money and have some fun. So we started to cover a lot of country and folk dances like "Little Red Valley." I wasn't the singer except for a few folk songs. We lasted one or two seasons (laughs).
You hadn't yet started to write your own songs?
A little here and there. I wrote a few verses back then. "Tonight Will Be Fine" or things like that could have started in that period.
VI. All Girls Are Crazy
What was your goal when you entered McGill University in 1951?
...(smiles) Wine, women and song. I don't think I had any goal at all. All the others had goals. I was talking to that friend about this the other day. We just hung out, we played pool (laughs)... We read poetry. We read it like a plan; we wanted to understand what truly living was about. Poetry was sacred writing; the Law. One had to live according to the Law. But for us poetry was also related to drinking and picking up girls (laughs)... Montreal was ideal for that; with good hang-outs, some cafes where you could drink cheaply, bring your guitar and sing. To live the life that poems spoke of: freedom, love, those kinds of things.
What was the importance of the people you met in college?
I met some very nice people, in particular, 3 men. Louis Dudek, Hugh McLennan, a Canadian author who died last year, and Irving Layton, who didn't go to school with me but was a writer in town. We would organize parties or little get-togethers with women. Professors were always there; there were no barriers, no master/student relationships. They liked our girlfriends (laughs). They were in their 30s or 40s; they liked the people we brought to their parties.
Were those 3 men influential to your relationship with literature and poetry?
The fraternal aspect was most important. They gave me friendship, their time, the feeling of belonging to some kind of community. It was like a period of mutual apprenticeship where we all read our poems to one another. Training was intense, rigorous, taken very seriously but the atmosphere was friendly. Once in awhile there were tears; someone would leave in a rage, we would argue but interest in the art of writing was at the center of our friendship. Later I became very close to Irving Layton, a friendship that was deeper than just mutual interest in writing that has lasted 20 or 30 years now.
Did you consider your professors as people who you should learn from?
Many people have asked my friend Layton that question. He refuses to claim even a slight influence on me. He says "Leonard came to poetry completely ripe. I taught him nothing." I think it's true. These men were so generous that they helped me to become secure with myself. Looking back, their generosity astounds me. Irving took me to Toronto and introduced me to some editors; he helped me and publicly defended me when I was attacked, in particular by circles on the left who claimed that I was some kind of egocentric middle class poet. For that I owe him a lot. But as far as my work goes, I don't think those men influenced me. I was touched by them.
What interest could they have had in youths who could have been their children?
We were amusing (laughs)... We had music, guitars, banjos and girlfriends and if indeed these men were well-known, they were only well-known to about 400 people in all of Canada, the only ones likely to buy their books of poetry. And that was a big sale. So they were happy just to find interest in poetry among people of the next generation. It wasn't like today when everybody has their books of poetry at home.
Was it a passion for the art of writing in general or particularly for the poetic form?
For the poetic form, even if some of them wrote books or stories. What we would consider the most advanced form of human expression was poetry. Dudek has his own personal conception of poetry but he didn't impose it upon his students. He couldn't have. Those things have no weight, no value. There was nothing to gain. Not even publication. We would publish our own books ourselves with a stencil. Aside from the futile dreams of planetary domination of every poet, the ambition of our small group was limited: put out a few books, distribute them to a few bookstores. Our group was quite ferocious. When you read your work it was in your best interest to be ready to defend it! "Why that word? That's shit!" (laughs)... I remember I once recited a poem while walking down the street with Irving. He just put his hand on my shoulder and said "How did you do that?" It was very informal. Later Irving and I used to spend a lot of evenings studying poems by someone like Wallace Stevens. We would study the poem until we discovered the code, until we knew exactly what the author was trying to say and how he did it. Line by line, word by word. That was our life, our life was poetry. Ideology had absolutely no importance. There was a type of aesthetic, never really defined: of confession, of modern language, of strong images, of authority in music. It was not at all academic. The poetry that they taught us in high school in Montreal, was a poetry made up of English influences that had nothing to do with our way of speaking. The academic establishment was still influenced by the romantic poetry of the 19th century, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth; only once in awhile did we look at Eliot or Arden, but even those were English or wrote in English rhythms. We were interested in creating a language closer to us, closer to our rhythms, that spoke to our own towns and our own lives.
Did you have a feeling of superiority, the certainty of being avant-garde?
We thought we were avant-garde! We were the only garde! (laughs)... Every time we met we thought it was a meeting at the summit, a historic moment. We thought we were creating the attitude of the country. We certainly created and exaggerated the idea of our importance; we thought we were doing something beautiful, durable and of value. It wasn't a feeling of superiority. There was no one to feel superior to because no one was interested! (laughs)
Did you live in a bubble or were you socially and politically aware?
There were those on the left and those on the right. Layton, at the beginning of his career, was on the extreme left and he progressively moved to the far right. There were some very strong political elements. I didn't find it ridiculous; I respected people's positions. But I felt that the world must change for each person individually. Of course I felt that the world was a butchery, that it was very badly governed but I didn't think we could change it by laws.
Was poetry also a way for you to approach girls more easily?
Oh yes. But few women were impressed because poetry wasn't very prestigious back then. It wasn't a very efficient instrument of seduction (laughs)...certainly not in the beginning. Young Canadian women were more realistic than that (laughs)... Tougher. My interest in women wasn't unique, we all shared it. We were starved. The atmosphere was pretty repressive. It wasn't like today; you didn't sleep with your girlfriend. It wasn't an ideology, I didn't feel rebellious, I just wanted to embrace someone. We felt very alone, you wanted to embrace someone in the dark. We weren't more starved than the others, we were all desperate. How can it be otherwise? I am totally normal. We're all crazy about girls. But at 15 everything was in my imagination, our experience was limited. A kiss in the back of a car. It think my vices developed later, slowly (laughs)...
Did you feel that you were particularly attractive to girls?
Absolutely not, absolutely not! (laughs)... You could eventually hold a girl's hand, sometimes she would let you kiss her...2 or 3 times, later though [when you'd] tell her goodnight. That's why we were as crazy as they were, we couldn't have them. I couldn't have it. We wished for it but it was forbidden.
VII. Chaos and Desolation
Religious language is an extraordinary material for writers and poets. Most of your themes use it.
The language and the imagery are very powerful. But it's an imagery that we share with the entire culture. When we speak of something we take the least difficult path, under the circumstances the images that anyone can relate to. There is no reason to dislike them; I don't criticize religion, I have nothing against it because it was always a part of me. I never felt that it oppressed me, like a tyranny, or that it was an obstacle that kept me from doing what I wanted to do or feeling what I wanted to feel. I had no need to push it away or reject it. On the contrary, I could use it to my advantage; it was a rich source, all these stories that everyone is familiar with. From David to Jesus, the idea of Law, of revelation, of a sacred life, or a messiah. All that poetry was at my fingertips.
For many people those words have no content. Do you think that the people who do not have a rich understanding of religion are missing something?
All of these religious expression are metaphors for the fear and the mysterious love that make up the background for all activity. They are metaphors for profound human necessities and profound human hungers. So if a particular tradition dissolves, be sure another will take its place. In my case, I have learned all those nourishing biblical metaphors. The traditions and customs that go with them are also very rich so I didn't need to look elsewhere. But if one doesn't have that at their disposition, one can't burn everything at the altar of materialism. Everyone comes to a point when they have to find value in their life, when one must find metaphors to explain the significance of one's own life. Whether it is through charity, meditation, therapy or financial enrichment; no matter what activity one chooses the intention is the same: to find a metaphor for the profound hunger to be significant in some way. Religious traditions fill that need but if it can't or doesn't for some people, other metaphors will emerge. Everyone continually examines, fights and corrects his metaphors. It's not something that's definite or acquired, it's an endless activity. One continually revises it in one's own way. I write songs.
You use many religious metaphors. Do you think that one needs a certain degree of religious understanding to be truly touched by your work?
I don't think so. We all know that David sang songs to satisfy his heart, we all know that Jesus was nailed to a cross. The stories that I use are commonly understood. I try to find common ground. Just to hear you talk about my "knowledge" makes my hair stand on end (laughs)... There is no knowledge. There is a saying, whose origin I forget, "From the broken fragments of my heart I will build an altar to the Lord." Everything is built from bits and pieces, from twigs and stones. It isn't an elite activity. You don't build cathedrals, you build little shelters. It is a modest and dirty activity. You don't use marble, granite, silver or gold. It is shown very clearly in the Bible. It says in the beginning there was only chaos and desolation, material without form. Then the Holy Spirit separated solid earth from water. That's how it began, that's the metaphor. If you penetrate these lines you will find only the crude material for creation, the creation of a song; the creation of your own life is not necessarily from marble or gold. You come from chaos and desolation, these are the materials for a song and a life. We don't start from a luxurious position, we start from a position of poverty. So I have no respect for my knowledge, everything I know is false; I don't believe I am capable of bringing it to my life or my work. That is why I know it is useless. Everyone acquires a technique, a way of doing things. But the building blocks, the DNA of a song or of a life, are chaos and desolation.
VIII. The Junk And Its Bouquet
I see many people who have no religious or traditional education who approach their life with a profound grace and true wisdom. I don't want to believe there was a golden age of tradition and that current times are corrupt and decadent. Perhaps that is the case, I don't know, one would have to live four or five centuries to be able to make that kind of an evaluation. I don't know what is going on, I never knew what is going on. Certain people, certain books seemed to know but books don't interest me. They are interested in fiction, they have a plot. I don't believe there is a plot.
You don't know what is going on around you, on the corner of your street?
I don't see anything more than what happens. I don't know what I think about it. I don't even understand the main function of my life, which is to write songs. The desire, the energy, the courage, the know-how, the balance, I don't know where the ability that lets you confront the chaos and desolation comes from. All that I know is that I am incapable of penetrating the process, whatever that process is, of the fundamental activity of my life. How can I penetrate the workings of the universe?
But when you wrote a song like "There Is A War" you knew what was going on.
At first there is the desire to be heard, to speak, to make your sound. Then you take what you can like a child that gather wooden cubes and builds a house. These are the available cubes: men and women, war and peace, love and death, desire and loss. They are only our words, they have no meaning. "There is a war between the rich and the poor," simple because we have the words war, rich and poor. Who is rich and who is poor? If the song is good it would have attacked that question... Most of the time you cannot speak. Most of the time you cannot sing. Most of the time you don't have the words. Once in awhile a word comes to you, "Democracy is Coming to the USA," one of my new songs. You may say "What are you trying to say, that the USA is not a democratic society now? Is it a criticism of the U.S., is it a dream, is it an optimistic projection? Is it a protest or an affirmation?" It doesn't matter because the times when something comes to you so strongly are so rare and precious that you accept them: "Democracy is Coming to the USA." It's as if someone holds out a sandwich to you when you are starved. You take it and maybe you don't like it. I don't particularly like "Democracy is Coming to the USA."
Do you read the newspaper on a regular basis?
Sometimes, at the moment I get the paper every morning. And of course during the Gulf war I watched the TV night and day like everyone else. I try to stay informed; I listen to the news on the radio. It's like the last verse of my song, "I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean / I love the country but I can't stand the scene / I'm neither left nor right, I'm just stayin' home tonight / Getting lost in that hopeless little screen / But I'm as stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay / I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet / Democracy is coming to the USA." So if you can place me on the political chessboard after that song (laughs)... Is it religious? Is it political? Is it social? Is it a joke? Is it mystical? A mystical democrat (laughs)...
Today, what is your relationship with the Jewish religion? Do you go to the synagogue?
No, I don't. I don't think about it. I light the candles at dusk on Friday night. I break the bread; I drink the wine.
In this domain, how have you educated your children?
I told them the stories, I told them the prayers, I showed them how to light the candles, I gave them the A to Z of the important holidays, that's all. And I celebrate the holidays with them. Now they are teenagers so they are very busy. They have better things to do than worry about that kind of thing. But if they do come to worry about it someday at least they will have some understanding.
Why do they live in Paris?
The mother of my children is American and she chose to live in France; for them it was a good place to grow up. I wanted them to be completely bilingual... I adore seeing my children. My daughter came to see me last night, it was marvelous. She's 16. I value their company and their conversation. Of course I worry incessantly. I had an intense family life, something my kids don't have. Uncles, aunts, cousins, regular reunions, every Friday night at my grandmother's house. Every Saturday and Sunday afternoon at my parents. But I still have the feeling of having an intense family life with the people that are part of my life.
IX. At the Bottom of the Hole
At 20, did you already have personal ambitions?
I never would have given them that name but I did feel a drive, a calling. "Ambition" has a profane connotation for me to use it while talking about myself.
Was it at school where the idea of a life in the artistic domain took on a real sense for you?
Yes, but there was never the question of a choice. I wrote, this work seemed accepted. I believed I was among the great; I thought one day I would occupy my place at the pantheon, all I had to do was continue. All I needed was to ink up the pages for them to make their way in the world and everything would be alright. Back then I was very self-confident. I had no doubts that my work would penetrate the world painlessly. I was 18. If I had the slightest doubt, I wouldn't have made it. There was nothing that could contradict that conviction. It seemed evident to me that there was no other life; it was easy to think that it would be easy.
When you were 20 you were confronted with some other difficult losses. Did you deal with them with the same detachment that you had when your father died?
I imagine, yes. Irving Layton wrote a good poem about me; he knew me well at that age. I was 35 but he had known me since I was 17. It contains an image where I watch a massacre unaffected.
Earlier you said that you weren't afraid of anything at that age. That is a very impressive statement.
Certainly from a coward (laughs)... We were all very self-confident back then. We didn't think about things like death, we weren't French (laughs)... I knew the world was a slaughterhouse but I thought that was normal. And I still believe that. I never thought I could go through it without being terribly cut up. But I was ready for the voyage. Anxious but ready to do it.
People have described you as a very troubled young man, uncertain of your beliefs, someone who was in part absent.
Well...I started to deteriorate right after that heroic declaration (laughs)...I began to seriously deteriorate. I became very preoccupied, very depressed. I spent a lot of time alone. Dying, letting myself slowly die. That heroic self-denial, slow, very slow. Splendid agony... In all the shivering and crying (laughs)... To die, to die, very slowly, to prolong death like a very bad opera (laughs)... A long and loud death (laughs)... Yeah.
How did you publish your first book Let Us Compare Mythologies?
We advertised in the college newspaper, The McGill Newspaper, to promote a subscription. We got enough money to get it printed.
What was the reaction to the book?
Very favorable. In the 3 magazines of the country that reviewed it, the reviews were very good. In general, it was well received. We were beginning to touch others besides our small circle; small groups in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton.
Were some people shocked by your mixture of sexuality and things sacred?
Those who would've been offended by the book would not have even known of its existence. Perhaps 200 read it, I don't remember how many were printed but those people were already converted. They may not have liked it but at least read it with an open mind. There couldn't have been resistance; it wasn't looked at in literature or theological departments or in newspapers.
So you were thinking in provocative terms?
Of course one must be persistent if one wants to be noticed. That is what everyone who publishes wants. Among poets, there were men and women who wanted to provoke, to attack the bourgeoisie, to incite conflict. That sentiment existed among us. My texts were not written from that point of view; having enemies didn't interest me. I felt that what I wrote was beautiful and that beauty was the passport of all ideas. I thought that the objective open-minded reader would understand that the juxtaposition of spirituality and sexuality justified itself entirely, that in no case was it a provocation. I felt that it was that juxtaposition that created that particular beauty, that lyricism. I believed that work whose purpose it was to attack something else was by nature inferior. There was no need to establish a conflict. I was more interested in reconciliation than in victory. The reconciliation of different parts of society. I was always in favor of an army, even in the middle of the Vietnam war. Of course there must be an army, just like there must be hierarchies and classes. The institutions are okay. The problem is the people within the institutions. It is difficult to establish institutions; it takes a lot of time, particularly democratic institutions. The form isn't the problem, it is the content. In the East, we see many forms that were created in one night and they don't work. I always instinctively sensed the beauty inherent in the forms that we have, it was not necessary to defy them or destroy them. That is why I believed that that type of revolution was superficial. All those revolutions inspired by Moscow and led by the Left always assumed that we were living in the worst possible time and that everything needed to be revised. My sentiment was that I had no idea how this time compared; I had no opinion on it.
You have said that you didn't want a rebellion. However, in The Favourite Game, one reads "Men who enslave themselves, who don't know that others wrote the sacred melody, men who take for possession that which is dying in their hands."
My feeling was that no matter what revolution you look at, it wasn't radical enough, profound enough, sacred enough or even thought through enough to make significant progress in this world. That was my feeling. Granted, things should change; yes it was repugnant, it's a butchery, it's corrupt. But all political responses are superficial and without foundation. We had opinions but deep down we felt they didn't come out of our daily situation.
You have attacked the developers who, according to you, were destroying the city of Montreal. You disliked certain people. Can you feel hate?
No...I was just making life interesting; I was just trying to be noticed (laughs)... There was no power behind those protests.
What was the importance of drugs in your circle?
For a lot of people, they were everyday life. To take off. But to take off for a reason: to liberate spiritual energy. That was the excuse. The pretense that everyone had a sacramental relationship with drugs: they had a purpose, they weren't just a pastime, it wasn't just an escape. On the contrary, it was to understand yourself. I also thought so. During certain periods it was everyday life as well. Thanks to drugs, for at least 15 minutes I could consider myself as the Great Evangelist of the New Age (laughs)...
What did your performances in the cafes of Montreal consist of?
For a limited period, I worked in a night club. We mixed poetry reading with jazz. I worked with the leader of a Montreal jazz band at that time. We played at midnight for a few weeks in a room above a delicatessen called Don's Birdland (laughs)... The orchestra played there all night long. I arrived at midnight and improvised for half an hour or an hour. I never played, the musicians were behind me. I read my old work, I spoke... It was during that period that I wrote my first book, Beauty at Close Quarters. I hated every minute of writing it; I should have realized it from the start, and no wanted to publish it.
X. What is the Weather like in Greece?
I went to Europe for the first time in 1959. I had a $300 scholarship. I went to England, where I lived in a boarding house owned by Mr. and Mrs. Pullman. All their rooms were rented but they saved me their living room. Mrs. Pullman asked me what I was doing in England and then she said to me "Well, you can stay here as long as you are writing. How much do you write each day?" "Three pages." "Good, as long as you write your three pages every day you can stay with us." I had to get up every morning before them, light the fire, and make sure the room was in order because they lived there when I wasn't sleeping. They were great people. Stella Pullman was a strict and generous landlady. She is partly responsible for finishing my book in a way.
What did you feel when you arrived in London?
"London is welcoming another great author!" (laughs)... There was Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Kelly, Sheats (?-P.), Keats and now me! Here I am! Living my little life, creating my master piece (laughs)... That was more or less my frame of mind. I went to Dublin thinking "Dublin, say hello to another great Irish author." I wrote a play in Dublin and went to the same pubs as Yeats. In London I never found the night life except at a West Indian club called The Allnighter with great music and great pot and dancing. My friend, Nancy Bacal, a friend from childhood, knew the town and took me there. She was dating a disciple of Malcolm X, Michael X, who later found the Black Muslim movement in London. He told me he was going to return to Trinidad and take over the government and he wanted me to be a part of the government (laughs)... I said "Listen, Michael, you are going to make a nationist black government, how could I be part of it?" He responded "Permanent advisor to the Minister of Tourism." (laughs)...
Was it during that period that you bought your raincoat that was made famous by your song "Famous Blue Raincoat"?
Yes, in England you needed a raincoat (laughs)... The day I arrived in London I bought my typewriter, Olivetti, and my raincoat: I was ready for my life in London. I kept the raincoat for years until it was stolen in '68. A good coat, a Burberry's.
Were the women in London very different from the women in Montreal?
You know, I knew very little about that, very little in Montreal and very little in London (laughs)... I wasn't very successful in that domain.
How did you decide to leave for Greece?
It rained almost everyday in London. I just had a wisdom tooth pulled quite brutally. I was walking on Bank Street with a huge cavity in my mouth. It was raining, I wasn't dressing properly; when I saw the sign of the Bank of Greece. I went in. There was someone quite tan behind the counter. I said "What is the weather like in Greece?" He said "It is springtime." So I left for Greece one or two days later. I stayed one night in Athens but I had heard a lot about Hydra, of that very beautiful island. I said to myself that I should go somewhere completely different in order to see how they live. I took the boat and rented a house.
What was it that made you stay there?
For one thing, economic reasons. I didn't have much money; renting the house cost me $14 a month. And as far as the weather went, I had never been in a warm climate; I didn't know what a Mediterranean climate was like, it was a nice surprise. In England, everything is very humid. The beds are humid at night, that is why the women are so strong! (laughs)... The first night Mrs. Pullman gave me a hot water bottle. "Why?" "Undo your bed and you'll know why." (laughs)... With Hydra it was love at first sight. The people, the architecture, the sky, the mules, the odor, the life. Everything you saw was beautiful; every corner, every lamp, everything you touched, everything you used was in its right place. The relationship with water: you didn't have running water; you had to catch it drop by drop, you knew every drop of water. You knew everything you used, every time you used a lamp you knew you would have to clean it and refill it the next day. The things you used were rich...it was a very good feeling. It was much more animated, much more cosmopolitan. There were Germans, Scandinavians, Australians, Americans, Dutch who you would run into in very intimate settings like the back of grocery stores.
Did that style of life encourage you to write? Was it the ideal environment?
You know, there is only one way to write: to fill up pages everyday. It is true that the environment helped but more than that you just felt good, strong, ready for the task. Everyone worked. The people got up early and worked. There was a wisdom of organization regarding the work. When it was too hot, you didn't work. Otherwise no interruptions, no telephones...Or of another kind: interruptions from your love life, or of drinking, or of friendship. Life was so engaging; there was always a cafe where you could sit down and chat with someone while drinking or eating for almost nothing; meet people. I lived on just a little more than $1000 a year. I came back to Montreal, earned $2000, enough to pay the boat trip and live in Greece for awhile. I lived like that for 6 or 7 years. Then I started to earn a bit more money and I could stay in Hydra for longer amounts of time.
In the poem [book?], "Flowers for Hitler", you describe meeting Marianne in a book store in Hydra.
It probably happened that way (laughs)... But I don't want to know.
Are you always pushed to write when a part of desire, of your appetite is satisfied?
Marianne and I didn't think there would be a love story. I don't think. We thought we would live together. I know people think that if your desire for love is satisfied you have no more motivation to write but I didn't find that to be the case. If I noticed a difference it was the opposite. There was a woman, she had a child, there were meals on the table, order in the upkeep of the house and harmony. It was the perfect moment to start to do some serious work. I was able to work a lot when I was with Marianne; I wrote Beautiful Losers and some other things. She brought a lot of order into my life.
A material order, in the way we live our daily life?
If you want to call it "material", okay. But material is spiritual, it is the true order, there is no other. When there is food on the table, when the candles are lit, when you wash the dishes together and put the child to bed together. That is order, that is spiritual order, there is no other.
XI. I Hold on to the End of a Piece of Wood
You have said that you aren't directly interested by politics. What were you doing in Cuba in 1961, right in the middle of Castro's revolution?
In a general way, I was trying to take the world by storm. That's what motivated the majority of my actions. I was looking for instructions in other movements. I thought an opportunity would arise which would let me put my mark on the world and I studied different movements of change so that I would be ready to grab that opportunity when it came.
In Cuba, what were you? An observer or an actor?
I think I manipulated all that. I felt that I was defending the island against an American invasion and planning that invasion at the same time. I was the instigation of the whole scandal (laughs)...
During that time you spoke of a "deep interest in violence."
It was a very fashionable point of view at that time. Violence doesn't interest me much anymore. But at the time I had never witnessed extreme violence. Now that I have seen a little I would like to avoid it at all costs. It was just a romantic interest in something I was not familiar with. Since then I have seen enough.
There was a lot going on in the world back then: Israel, the Suez, the Cold War... Did you pick sides, did you have a strong opinion?
I was behind everything. I couldn't see the megalomania that made up my perspective at that time. True megalomania but still with an odd attitude: I thought that the whole world was functioning for the benefit of my personal observation and education. Everything that happened fit into my vast plan... I wasn't interest in practical problems. I had this plan for which everything was going as it should.
Were you satisfied with everything that was happening?
Yes, and still am. For me, suffering was not a political question even if I recognized that certain systems produced more suffering than others. You have to be an idiot not to recognize that. So I had the same feelings as the rest of the world regarding those systems; I was against them. But at the same time I believed that the origins of suffering weren't political; it came from something much deeper, much more profound, something inherent to the cross of human condition. I had no faith in my political opinions; they didn't really interest me and they changed often. I was never really passionate about my opinions even back then. As you get older you see people adopt all kinds of nonsense. At one point or another every French intellectual was a Maoist, as if China had had a true alternative to the American industrial experience. You begin to see that these opinions are absurd, that all those reservoirs of thought were used up. The left, for example, only survives today in France or in Italy where communist ideas had a true validity. Of course those ideas were very attractive to me but in the Bible too: I was always attracted to the messianic ideas. The belief in a human brotherhood, in a compassionate society, in people who lived for something more than their own guilt always attracted me.
Do you vote?
Sometimes I vote. You know, I live a thousand different lives. But those things aren't terribly important. Sometimes I vote, sometimes I think about politics, sometimes I read the papers, sometimes I have an opinion, sometimes I make decisions, sometimes I'm very active. I have been known to do all that... But it is like someone who finds themselves in the middle of an ocean and they grab onto a piece of wood. Eventually they can lift up their eyes and see that the sky is blue, watch birds fly by, make signs to someone else on another piece of wood but their principal concern is to hang on when the waves come. Their conversation may sometimes go towards other things but underneath their talk is only one true concern: to hang on. That is how I feel about my life. That something very urgent and dangerous demands all my attention and everything else is superficial. It isn't a very seductive belief to admire or imitate but it's the truth. It is hard for me to hang on. Maybe it would be a good idea to let go of that piece of wood. Maybe I would discover that I swim perfectly well in the storms and the floods. But I don't think so. In any case, I'm not taking the risk. So most of my energy goes into hanging onto that piece of wood and to the other people that hang to the same piece of wood, to whom I have responsibilities.
To put out a record, is that to hang on?
Not to put it out but to make it. That's hanging on, absolutely. Except at times like the present when the whole process is falling apart. I can't continue, I don't know where to go, I feel incapable of finishing the songs, I am losing contact with them, I don't know what the material is about or why I started it. This happens often and I have to make peace with this new situation before I can go on.
XII. James Joyce is Not Dead
After the publication of your book of poems, Flowers for Hitler, in '64 a journalist asked you why concentration camps were a reoccurring theme in all your books, you answered that it was because you wanted to be free of them. Are you free of them now?
I can't really talk about concentration camps casually. It is difficult to answer that question. I don't remember saying that. I would have hoped, even at that young age, to have the discretion to keep quiet on the subject of concentration camps. Except during the sacramental moments of writing a poem or a song.
You also said "I wasn't touched by any of the subjects I write about, I don't recall worrying about anything, you could say I don't suffer." One could get the impression that you were trying to be provocative at that time.
That must have been a long, long time ago. Maybe I wanted to provoke something but I think I was trying to be just and precise in that sentence. I probably felt on that day that nothing I write about touches me... You know that I'm not very interested in myself.
However, you had the will to "take power".
But that, that is just pornography. Those feelings were some kind of spiritual pornography. It was the most evident expansion of megalomania, a complete affirmation of the ego, a complete and amusing affirmation of the kind of appetite I had for control and domination.
Do you remember under what circumstances you wrote Beautiful Losers, your second book?
I wrote it with what felt like sunstroke. I wrote it to the outside world during two very intense eight month periods. Near the end of the book I was writing 12 to 15 hours a day but in the beginning I only wrote long enough to write three pages, sometimes one hour, sometimes eight. After the book started taking shape I would write for very long periods of time, much more than three pages at a time.
When Beautiful Losers was published in '66, an article was written that said "James Joyce is not dead. He lives in Montreal under the name Leonard Cohen." How did you react to that?
Of course I appreciate comparisons with James Joyce, he is a wonderful author even if I haven't read the bulk of his work since it is so difficult. I appreciated the compliment. I knew I had a certain inspiration and I was happy it was recognized.
I haven't seen a single book in your home. Do you have any? Do you hide them?
I have very few and they're put away. I very rarely go to bookstores. Except when I'm at the airport and have a lot of time.
Is it true that you wrote a large part of Beautiful Losers under the influence of or with the help of drugs?
It's true. I took a lot of amphetamines. I had the impression that they strengthened the faculties of my mind. I was never hooked and I wasn't aware of the consequences. At a certain point I simply could take no more; I was hardly alive. It just stopped. I collapsed. The whole system collapsed. It isn't a very good drug for depressed people because coming down is very bad. It took me 10 years to fully recover. I had memory lapses; it was as if my insides were fried. I couldn't get up anymore; I was in bed like a vegetable, incapable of doing whatever for a long time; without eating. I weighed less than 40 kg. (according to Throat Culture's calculations that's 88 lbs. -P). They say amphetamines don't create any energy, that they take it from your future. With me, they took 10 years. I took them again a couple of times but never regularly. I hardly touched hallucinogens, never hard drugs although a lot of people around me died from them, some very close friends.
How did you change from being a songwriter and a singer from a writer?
I always played the guitar, I always sang. Suddenly I realized I couldn't earn a living as an author. I had published a couple of books, of which two had good reviews, but I couldn't pay my grocery bill. My second book sold 3,000 copies maybe, you can't go very far with that.
I thought, however, that you were considered a star.
Like all little stars, yes I had some very good reviews in the papers, in the New York Times poetry section but I sold 3,000 copies of Beautiful Losers in the U.S. and maybe 1,000 in Canada. As to The Favourite Game, a couple of hundred in Canada and 1,000 in the U.S. I was aware of the fact that I had no money. I thought of going to Nashville and making a Country Western record and help myself financially that way. On my way to Nashville I went through New York. I didn't know what was going on in the U.S., I hadn't had any contacts with the states for a long time. That was the first time I heard about Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Tim Buckley... When I arrived in New York I realized something unique was happening and that Nashville wasn't the place to go. You had to be in New York. So I returned to New York and really got to work writing songs. I went back and forth between New York and Montreal: I played my stuff for people. I wanted to meet people. I wanted to be a part of something. I never reached that goal. Most of the time I found myself alone in the city. And if something happened I never heard about it. Once in awhile I would run into someone in a club, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs or Joni Mitchell. I knew some of them pretty well. But it was mostly a lonely situation, I wasn't part of any group.
XIII. Nico: Deaf As A Doorknob
A friend of mine introduced me to Judy Collins. I went to her house and sang her a couple of songs that didn't interest her and she said to me "Come back if you have something I might like." A few months later after having finished "Suzanne", I called her from Montreal and sang it to her on the phone. She wanted to sing it right away. Mary Martin, who became my manager, called John Hammond, who knew Judy Collins' record company. He took me to lunch near the Chelsea Hotel and asked me to sing a few tunes. He said "You got it!", I could start to record a record. It was a very good time for songwriters/singers. Record companies were looking. They were very lenient with the voice... Me, I sang a bit worse than the others but that wasn't an obstacle. Much later, after the Newport festival, I said to my lawyer, "Listen Marty, I can't sing, I know now that I can't sing." He responded "But none of you can sing! When I want to hear singers I go to the Metropolitan opera." (laughs)
During your famous first appearance on stage, you still had never recorded, you left the stage right in the middle of "Suzanne".
It was a concert for a New York radio station. Judy Collins asked me to come on stage and sing. There was a big temperature difference between the stage, where it was cold, and back stage where it was warm. I had that fine Spanish guitar that went completely out of tune. I remember my panic as I was trying to tune it. Finally I left the stage (laughs)... I tuned it and I went back on.
Do you feel an affinity with the celebrities of the New York folk scene?
I felt close to them, I would buy their records. I felt that basically we were all part of the same world. I wasn't intimate with them but I would run into them on the street once in awhile; we would have a drink together. We sensed that in one way or another we were in the same boat.
Contrary to you, Dylan had a very strong social consciousness, it was one of the most important motivations of his work.
The social consciousness of all those people was very strong. They had different ways of approaching the situation. Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan or Phil Ochs could confront it face to face. Tim Hardin or myself would confront something in a completely opposite way. We all spoke of the same thing. We all spoke of a new world in one way or another. We didn't feel that one was more politically aware than the other. Some were more politically active, like Joan Baez for example. But everyone who raised their voice did it in the name of something we could all understand.
When you were in New York in '66 and '67 it was also the period of pop art. Did that interest you?
I saw pop art the same way I saw everything else: there was an effort to personalize art, to do away with academic art. Pop art was derived from our present culture, our canned goods, our comic strips. I warmed up to pop art right away because I wanted our art to speak of us, just as I wanted our music to speak of us. Everything was going in that direction; that was part of the excitement. We sensed that there was beauty, dignity, a significance in things that so much of the world found vulgar or infantile. Not at all, it was our world, why not celebrate it?! But I never met anyone from the pop art crowd. One night in 1966 I went looking for the famous "scene". And you could see that extremely beautiful woman who sang in a monotone. I immediately fell in love with her. That was Nico. Jackson Browne accompanied her on guitar. I tried to introduce myself to her but she was interested in Jackson Browne who was 18 years old, very handsome and talented (laughs)... Nico and me and Jackson became friends. We spent a couple of nights together at Dom. Andy Warhol came in once in awhile; I would wave at him and him at me. I had a very small reputation back then, one of the man that wrote "Suzanne" that Judy Collins recorded. That was my only credit. Until I met Lou Reed who knew my work well. He had read both Beautiful Losers and Flowers for Hitler, he was very nice to me, very warm. One night we were together at a table at Max's Kansas City when someone insulted me and as usual I didn't realize it. Lou Reed clued me in to it and said "Don't pay any attention, Leonard, you're the man who wrote Beautiful Losers." (laughs)...
Is it true that you wrote "Take This Longing" for Nico?
I gave her that song. She sang it to me a couple times but never recorded it. Nico was very strange. I tried to talk to her and she always replied very mysteriously. No matter what you said she always replied in a curious fashion. It was only after many weeks, after being perplexed by her conversation and paralyzed by her beauty that she told me she was deaf. She responded to everyone with whatever came into her mind because she could hardly hear a thing. Which explains her particularly strange style. But I definitely wrote "Take This Longing" thinking of her.
XIV. Deep, Always Deeper
At the time of your first album, did you have musical principles?
I suppose so but I wasn't conscious of them. I thought that it was the notes that served the words and the melody. But I was always interested by minimalism even if we didn't use that term. I liked simple things, simple poetry, I liked the simple more than the decorative. That was my taste. I didn't have principles to defend or promote; my songs spoke for themselves. I had no aesthetic principles.
John Hammond suffered a heart attack during the recording of your first album in '67 in New York. Because of you?
I don't think so. He was sick. Until then he had helped me a lot in the studio. I had never been in one before, I didn't know what to do. We tried different approaches, with groups, but we decided most of the time on just my voice, my guitar and eventually a bass. In the beginning of the recording sessions, I was ready to go, then John Hammond got sick and I lost touch with my music. After a while I forgot what my songs were talking about and I went to see a hypnotist (laughs)... The thing collapsed and I started over. One would say the same process happens each time, I lose it and then I find it again. John Hammond was replaced by John Simon, who liked to add a lot of extra stuff. He brought a lot of melodic elements to the songs. We had pretty many serious disagreements, one was when he wanted to introduce a piano in "Suzanne". I liked what he did with the chords and with the female voices but I was completely opposed to the rhythmic piano he wanted to use, just as I was opposed to gimmicks and voice mixing. Finally he said to me "Listen, I've had it. I'm leaving for Christmas vacation, you mix the record and do what you want with it." It was during that time that I was separating from Marianne, and I moved to New York to record and live. Marianne was in Europe; we had started to see each other less and less during that period.
People were immediately impressed by your ability to speak shamelessly about being scared and sad. You never felt embarrassed admitting these things so openly?
The only thing one should be ashamed of is not telling the truth. I have not even begun to develop a confessional style, I feel like I have just bloomed. I would like to hear a true feeling, a true thought, a true description of the sad situation man is in. Me, I have hardly bloomed. I can't be embarrassed, besides I haven't succeeded in digging deep enough yet. I have often been criticized for being depressing; I was depressed! I remember one time, my old friend, who taught me to drink, was at the studio while I was recording New Skin For The Old Ceremony. The next day during breakfast he said "You should sing sadder." (laughs)... Now I understand, I should sing sadder. I think we have only just scratched the surface of emotion in music. We start right. It takes a lot of courage...No, of urgency and necessity to truly speak. The market being what it is, it is even more difficult today. There are deep feelings but they don't transcend, I don't hear great songs anymore. If I didn't dig deep enough it was because I was afraid. I didn't have the courage or the ability. I need to go deeper, always deeper. Either that or stop courageously at the surface like Fats Domino, like the black artists, like the blues singers: "Everybody wants to laugh, nobody wants to cry / Everybody wants to go to heaven, nobody wants to die." It is at the same time superficial and as deep as possible. You have to be incredibly good to write so simply. So either write that simply or tell the true story of your own life: that's what I would like to do. My songs have not gotten there yet but it is all I have been capable of. I couldn't have done better at the time. But it's okay. The voice is true.
How was your first album received?
It had pretty good success. Certainly in Europe but also in the U.S. For me it was enough. I felt that the record had entered the world and was accepted. My personal problems had reached a point which left me not caring about my life or my success. My personal life had started to seriously collapse. I wasn't conscious of the success because I couldn't absorb it. I didn't understand success. I was happy to be earning a living; that my work was going well and that I got letters from people who seemed to find comfort in my songs. It also helped me meet women... But I didn't know the taste of success. One might think that success helps you fix up your personal problems but it doesn't work that way.
Why did you choose a little later to live in Nashville for awhile?
I always liked country music. It was my original goal when I first came to New York and discovered these people and what we call folk music. A few years later I finally went to Nashville. I wanted to live in the country. A friend, Bob Johnston, who produced my third and fourth albums, knew Boudleaux Bryant, the author of some great songs like "Bye Bye Blackbird" and some hits for the Everly Brothers. He was renting a cabin for $75 a month, 1500 acres and a stream. So I moved there. I had a house, a jeep, a carbine, a pair of cowboy boots, a girlfriend...A typewriter, a guitar. Everything I needed.
Do you understand the people who criticized you for continuing to visit Greece after the coup d'etat in '69?
Actually I stopped going there regularly about that time. I understand that they thought it was a betrayal of mankind to vacation in a country ruled by fascists. But I didn't see it that way. I had a house there, friends; I didn't consider my presence there a collaboration. It was the contrary.
How did you react when you were insulted on stage particularly in France during a concert in your first tour in Aix-En-Provence in 1970? Someone even cried "fascist" and threw bottles onto the stage.
There was some kind of Maoist rebellion going on in the audience. A group of people thought that they shouldn't have to pay to enter. I think they thought of me as the representation of some sort of decadent political system. I think they even shot at me. We were never sure but we heard a noise which sounded like it. Some bottles, some shots (laughs)...a few insults. What can you do? Keep on singing. I said to them "Listen, there are only five of us on stage. There are 2500 of you. If you don't like what you hear come take the microphone. Until then we'll keep singing." I figured it would pass. And then we felt okay. First of all, we came to the stage from the hotel on horses. We went horseback riding in the country side at night. It was a beautiful night and I was with a bunch of guys from Texas and Tennessee. We felt indestructible. We attached our horses behind the stage and then got up there and sang a few songs. And a few people didn't seem to appreciate our presence...I tried to take it lightly. I didn't want to start a riot.
XV. To Write For Someone Like Me
When I innocently started my first record I thought I knew how to sing. Later everyone told me the truth. Finally Melody Maker wrote after my concert on Wight Island "Leonard Cohen is an old bore who should just return to Canada which he never should have left to begin with."
Did you ever think of stopping?
I don't know why I didn't stop. I just kept going. It was around that time that absolutely everything was beginning to fall apart around me; my spirit, my intentions, my will. So I went into deep and long depressions. My life started to radically fall apart.
Your third album was particularly criticized in '71, Songs Of Love And Hate.
The album isn't bad. The songs are good but it was a period where I became very self-critical. I began to believe all the negative things people said about my way of singing. I began to hate the sound of my voice. That is why I hated to listen to it. I found something weak and pitiful about the sound of my voice. My life was truly crumbling. I didn't see anything about myself or my work very favorably. I felt that I was a complete failure. I didn't see that I was still very affected by my period of drug use. Looking back after many years I see all the time it took me to find equilibrium in my life again.
Were you depressed because of your personal problems or because of your work?
It was due to both but they weren't the source. Maybe they ignited my depression. Those depressions came in cycles.
Your children, Adam and Lorca, were born in that period. What was your reaction?
It is only when you have children that you're truly forced to give up looking only at yourself and start worrying about some other lives. If you attempt to respond to a child, you can never think of yourself in the same way again. You stop being the center of your drama, which becomes very secondary in light of your children's needs, of their urgency. I understood right away that the trap had slammed shut (laughs)... There are many marvelous aspects of course; the beauty is indisputable. But the destruction of your self image is inevitable. There were many things that I didn't like about myself. I was very selfish, I was only concerned with myself. I wouldn't admit that other beings were legitimately worth my attention.
Did you want to leave something behind you, a descendant?
Oh no...not at all. I had no conscious desire to leave an offspring...I didn't really wish for children. Their mother, Suzanne, wanted kids. So I obliged.
In '72, in your last book of poetry Energy of Slaves, you spoke of the inefficiency of poetry. What was it that gave you that feeling?
I think that's the favorite of my books. It is alive...It is just a step in a journey. It is a harsh beauty. "The poems don't love us anymore": that's a pretty line. It's true. My friend Layton wrote during the same period that art was nothing more than nail polish. And that is the moment when you sense that the culture itself is rotten. That all cultural manifestations are just lures. Even back then I preferred popular culture to academic culture but...words mean nothing. What does that mean "The poems don't love us anymore?" It has no significance, it is just a sound. It means that literary culture doesn't nourish us anymore; we can no longer live our lives with the same conception of what a poet or a writer is. It is no longer simply enough to hold on to. In one poem I say "When things went wrong / I didn't turn to drugs or teaching / I learned to write / learned to write what might be read / On nights like this / By one like me." In this book I salute those who feel the way I do. It is understood if you don't share those feelings, it doesn't matter, the book is not there for that. The book is to salute those who feel that way.
With New Skin For The Old Ceremony, your 4th album, were you still as unhappy with your voice? You have said that there was no power in that record because you were weak.
I said that too? I guess I have "have said something" often (laughs)... You know, what you feel about a record has nothing to do with the objective reality as to whether it is bad or good.
It was during the Yom Kippur war. It's surprising to hear so many war-like terms in your lyrics: war, enemy...
I guess I had a bellicose humor at the time. I guess I was at war with myself. What is it on that album? "Field Commander Cohen," "Lover Lover Lover," "Who By Fire," "There Is A War"...Yes, there are many songs about war. That was what year? '73? '74? When you hear the new record you will see that now I am really pissed off (laughs)... In '73 when the Yom Kippur war started I was a volunteer. I left for Israel; I was in Greece and without even thinking about it I took a plane for Israel and offered my help. We had a jeep and we went near the front line and as soon as we found wounded we would begin to sing songs. (??! -P.) [Don't know what the interviewer is surprised about. Leonard has talked about this before. -Marie] You can only leave in the case of war, otherwise you must stay at the house. It was an excuse to leave, that much is certain. They don't let you leave except to make a living or go to fight, that's legitimate. If your brothers are attacked and you feel responsible, you go to them. It was both my duty and my alibi.
When did you first come into contact with Buddhism and Zen?
I never came into contact with them directly, they didn't interest me. But I met a man, 20 years ago, who I liked a lot. He was much older than me and he seemed to know a lot. One thing he knew how to do was drink. I learned from him how to drink. It turns out he is an old Buddhist monk. And as he said to me a couple years ago "Leonard, I have known you for 18 years and I never tried to convert you to my religion, I just serve you saki." That is my relationship with Buddhism; no interest at all for Zen, what interested me was to drink with my old friend and to enjoy his company. And I like to sit in the meditation room because there isn't a telephone, the incense is mild, it is very calm and I can hold onto my piece of wood very securely when I am sitting there in the morning. You have the opportunity to study yourself. How it rises and how it falls. But what Buddhism has to say on the subject doesn't interest me.
What do you and this monk talk about?
Well, he doesn't speak English so it is very hard to talk about theology with him. He says to me "Do you know the difference between a Remy Martin Cognac and a Courvoisier?" I don't know, I tell him I am trying... 'Hum'... He tastes... 'Hum, the Remy Martin has a taste a bit more feminine...'" That is the type of conversation we have. He has a tendency not to particularly like religion. It is difficult not to have an aversion toward religion when you see what it does to people, at what point they become satisfied with themselves, to what point it separates themselves from others. Generally speaking religion has a pretty disagreeable odor. The love of God, that's a different story. At least two times a year I go to Mount Baldy. It looks like a monastery, it is a very intensive center for Zen training. The days are filled with meditation and manual labor. In the kitchen, the garden, we dig, we paint. I like being part of a community once in awhile. There is nothing extra, you live the day, no theology, no dogma. You live a religious life on the inside, not on the outside. You get up at three in the morning, you sit for two hours in the meditation room, you prepare breakfast, you clean, you polish, you garden, then you meditate again. And you study yourself in your own way with the help of a teacher but not one of theology.
XVI. Spector, His Gun And His Holster
You spoke about the desire to always go deeper. Isn't that in contradiction with the status as a pop star?
It's the others I would like to see go deeper, not myself. Me, I want to get out, I want to lose contact with myself... I'm not so lucky (laughs)... I don't know if I'm a pop singer. I go on tour, every three or four years maybe and so I guess I'm a pop singer for a couple of months. The rest of the time I'm someone else.
Bob Dylan dedicated his album Desire in '75 with these words: "This is for Leonard, if he's still here." Would you like to disappear from the public eye?
That seems to be the rhythm of my life. To prepare my work takes time, and when it is finished, I bring it on the road and sing songs. When it is over I sequester myself again until the next time. There is no big strategy, it's just the rhythm of activity. I don't play hid and seek with the public, no (laughs)...I don't preoccupy myself with that.
Who is on the cover of the album Death Of A Ladies' Man of '77?
The one with the brown hair is the mother of my children, the one with the lighter hair is a friend of ours. The picture was taken by a photographer in a Polynesian restaurant in Montreal, the kind that goes from table to table taking pictures of the guests... I like the songs but I really didn't know how to sing them. I would sing them much differently now. And I had problems making it. It was hard to work with Phil Spector.
You knew, however, about Phil Spector and his reputation as an eccentric megalomaniac.
I knew his songs, I liked his work a lot. But I didn't know what it was to work with him in the studio! He had come to one of my concerts here in Los Angeles at the Troubadour. After the concert, Phil invited us to his house. The house was freezing due to the air conditioning, it was four degrees. He locked the door so we couldn't leave. I said "Listen Phil, if you lock us in here, we are going to get bored... So as long as we are locked up we might as well write some songs together." So we started that very night. We wrote songs together for about a month, it was fun. Phil is really a charming guy when you are with him alone. I would write the words, then he would work on the melody, then I would revise the words to better fit the melody. We would exchange ideas. But in the studio when other people were around he was a totally different man. He is very nice but he pretends to be violent. He kept a lot of guns around, armed bodyguards; bullets and wine bottles littered the floor...A pretty dangerous situation. I wouldn't say Phil is someone lovable but he wasn't mean. Except once when he pointed a guy to my throat and then cocked it. He said "I love you Leonard." I responded "I hope you love me Phil." (laughs)... Once in the studio he pointed a revolver at the violinist who then packed up his violin and ran out (laughs)... But it was a bad time for Phil too. My mother was dying of leukemia, I was constantly going between Montreal and Los Angeles...
You have said that you wished to find Phil Spector in his Debussy period but you found him in his Wagner period.
Yes...the atmosphere he created made it impossible to work. I didn't like the record at all when it was released but I find it has a certain charm for me now. The orchestrations are brilliant but I don't like the singing. We only used the first voice takes. Phil was in a very fantastical period... I wasn't there when he mixed it; he mixed it in secret. Every night he would collect all the tracks... I couldn't work that way. He gave the finished product to the manufacturers; all I had to do was say yes or no... And that's just a small part of the story (laughs)... At one point I asked myself it I should get myself some bodyguards and settle the whole affair on Sunset Boulevard (laughs)... I haven't seen Phil since. He lives alone, me too. We have spoken on the telephone and I sent him a pair of red holsters as a gag of reconciliation.
On that fantastic album, the most underestimated of all your albums, is one of your most incredible lines: "Whatever happened to my eyes happened to your beauty." Aren't you ever surprised by the cruelty of your lyrics?
You haven't heard any thing yet (laughs)... That's a good line. I have nothing to say about it; the words come, you work them into a form that seems right.
'77 was the punk explosion, which attacked the old generation. How did you react?
I was always aware of different musical movements but I always followed my own voice... I liked that music, I appreciated it. I think they liked me as well. I understood their position, I had often felt the desire to destroy everything. That is certainly the feeling in The Energy of Slaves. That position wasn't foreign to me, there was something there that truly pleased me.
Certain groups born in that generation picked up your pieces. You who spent so much time finishing them, perfecting them, recording them, doesn't it bother you to watch these songs escape you? Do you judge them?
I am delighted to watch them escape me (laughs)... Nothing could make me more happy than a record of my own songs. Why would I judge them? It's just their way of seeing my songs. My critical faculties are turned off when someone plays one of my songs. I love to hear the way they do it, no matter how.
What motivated you to write the book of psalms The Book of Mercy, your last publication that dates to '84?
It came from an intense desire to speak in that way. And you don't speak in that way unless you feel truly cornered, unless you feel truly desperate and you feel urgency in your life. All our words are important but "mercy" on the one hand and "judgment" on the other are two polarities of religious experience. That's not important, it's just the way I wanted to speak at that time. I also wanted to affirm the traditions I had inherited; a certain way of speaking comes from the Bible, the psalms, the letters. I wanted to express my gratitude for having been exposed to that tradition.
With the album Various Positions in '85, your voice changed again, it's deeper than ever.
Yes, I was more self-confident at that time.
With the next album, I'm Your Man in '88, did you feel like you were in less troubled times?
Yes, oh yes, however, during I'm Your Man I was pretty down but I came out of it strong (laughs)... I feel like I know better what to do with myself when it's collapsing.
Do you talk about your records with your kids?
My children have memorized all the words, they quote me. My son, who wants to devote himself entirely to music, did a very good version of "Tower Of Song". They don't talk about them as critics, they just tell me what they like and don't like. We talk more about other types of music.
XVII. The Old Slave
Enter a bar and have a drink with the guy next to you... I never met anyone who doesn't talk about the same things: the search for love, the loss of love, failure, the things they are proud of, those who betrayed them, those who were loyal to them... That's the essence of human life. I never met anyone whose interior life was very different from my own.
Do you accept a certain vanity? Is a certain futility necessary? One would almost say that you have rid them from your life.
I like them both (laughs)... Perhaps you don't think I pay attention to comfort and good times? It's good to see pleasure. But I have no solid opinion of my nature, it is constantly changing, it doesn't much interest me to know what it looks like.
Do you think it is a luxury to live the way you do, detached from material things?
I'm not detached from material things, no one can be. I have a family to support, I have friends, I have keyboards that are expensive, I have to pay for my rented car (laughs)... I am not at all detached from material things. I am not obsessed by them. I try to live simply but that's not a virtue. I enjoy not having a lot of things. Because if you have a lot of things you have to take care of them and I don't like to deal with that. So I like to have as little as possible, I already have too many things here (laughs)... To live simply is a great luxury. It's true, you must have a lot of money to live that way. You know, my last record sold well but the others practically didn't sell. I have always had to fight, I have always had financial preoccupations. But I have always had a very privileged life, I've had a lot of luck, I don't deny it. I could do my work and be well paid for it. That is a great luxury. I can't complain about having led my life. I see that there are people who work as hard, the people who work in mines in Bolivia and aren't as well paid as me. I work as hard as them but I am much better paid. In our society people aren't encouraged to work hard. I would truly prefer not to work so much.
Are discipline and principles of work important to you? Do you have very strict rules in your life?
I won't call it discipline anymore. It was but now it's second nature. It is simply what I do during the day. Usually I get up very early and meditate. I start at five in the morning. Then at seven I make a big pot of coffee, open a pack of cigarettes and start working or what is supposed to be working. I sit in front of my synthesizer, I have a scribble pad next to me and I play and replay the same songs until they take on a form in my eyes. That lasts a couple of hours and then stops. I start again in the afternoon. Generally my mornings go like that.
Do you have to force yourself to start working?
No, it is beyond that because it is like slavery. The slave has no choice in the matter. Me too, I always try to escape but it always catches me, puts my chains back on and puts me in front of the table, as if my songs attached me to the table (laughs)... 27 angels attach you to the table, like in my song "Tower Of Song". I am an old slave now, I don't try to escape anymore. Once in awhile I get sick and the whole process stops so it doesn't make me work but let's me wander around the house.
What do you do about distractions of everyday life like the TV?
I need a lot of TV. It nourishes me. If I work very hard all day I watch TV at night for a little while. It is great to help you get drowsy. It is so boring that you fall asleep. (Just like this magazine -P.) It gets you slightly addicted but it's not as bad as sleeping pills... Are you hungry? (He rubs his hands together at the idea of preparing our dinner, the gesture and the look of a true gourmand.)
So finally, what are you doing in Los Angeles?
My old friend, the one who taught me how to drink, is very old. I'm here to spend his last moments with him. Also, I like it when nothing is going on. Look...has anything at all happened since we've been here?
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