Authors: Ira B. Nadel
“Jazz Police,” the most unorthodox song on the album, was Cohen’s response to his band’s effort to introduce augmented fifths and sevenths to their playing. He policed such jazz intrusions, although he admits that he wasn’t sure of the lyric’s meaning and grew to dislike the conceit. But he left it on the album because “
it caught the mood of this whole period … this kind of fragmented absurdity.” “I Can’t Forget,” with its limpid language, “
started off as a song about the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt. As a metaphor for the journey of the soul from bondage into freedom.” It started that way, “but in the studio I couldn’t handle it and couldn’t sing about a burden being lifted since mine hadn’t.” Originally called “Taken Out of Egypt,” which took months to write, it had to be recast, beginning with the question “
What is my life?” “That’s when I started writing that lyric: “I stumbled out of bed / I got ready for the struggle / I smoked a cigarette / And I tightened up my gut.”
“Tower of Song” is the keynote work on
I’m Your Man
. With it Cohen wanted to “
make a definitive statement about this heroic enterprise of the craft” of songwriting. In the early eighties he called the work “Raise My Voice in Song.” His concern was with the aging songwriter, and the “
necessity to transcend one’s own failure by manifesting as the singer, as the songwriter.” He had abandoned the song, but one night in Montreal
he finished the lyrics and called an engineer and recorded it in one take with a toy synthesizer. Jennifer Warnes added some vocals and Cohen attempted some “repairs,” which was difficult since there were only two tracks. It was intitially felt that the quality was too poor and the musicality too thin. Warnes, however, “
really placed it, putting it in the ironic perspective it needed; she was a real collaborator on it more than anything she ever did—and she’s done wonderful things for me but this was the most wonderous thing she ever did for me, this doo-wop kind of perspective; she really illuminated the song with that contribution,” Cohen said.
The revised song contains a classic Cohen opener, both self-reflexive and comic, positioning the singer in a new-found posture: “
Well, my friends are gone / and my hair is grey. / I ache in the places / where I used to play. / And I’m crazy for love / but I’m not coming on. / I’m just paying my rent every day / in the Tower of Song.”
When he had written the song and completed the album, Cohen realized for the first time that he was an entertainer: “
I never thought I
was
in showbiz.” Until then, he had held on to the notion of being a writer: “
Now I know what I am. I’m not a novelist. I’m not the light of my generation. I’m not the spokesman for a new sensibility. I’m a songwriter living in L.A. and this is my record.”
His own tower of song was the second-story study of his modest Los Angeles home, where he kept a fax machine, an electronic keyboard/synthesizer, and a computer on an oversized, roughly cut wooden table. He quickly adjusted to using a computer: “
They say that the Torah was written with black fire on white fire. So I get that feeling from the computer, the bright black against the bright background. It gives a certain theatrical dignity to see it on the screen.” The keyboard/synthesizer allows him to “mock up” his songs with various accompaniments to test their musical possibilities.
Supporting the April release of the single “Ain’t No Cure For Love,” Cohen sent a note to the CBS sales reps that read, “
I don’t really know how to do this, but I hear you’ll be working my record, so here’s two dollars.” His joke was prompted by the publication of Fredric Dannen’s
Hit Men
, exposing the shoddy dealings of the record industry and the importance of payola. Reaction to the album was positive; it was hailed for its accessible sound and incisive lyrics, “
a sardonic last call from a
ravaged
roué
.” T
he
month the album was released Cohen began a forty-one concert European tour.
Rehearsals for the tour were grueling and several days spent on perfecting one song was not uncommon. Often Cohen would complain that “
it doesn’t sound like music.” Arrangements would change quickly and new approaches would be tried. A backup singer, for example, suggested a funkier version of “First We Take Manhattan,” replacing the Euro-Disco sound Jennifer Warnes used on
Famous Blue Raincoat
. It worked and Cohen used it. He constantly reminded his singers and musicians that “
what you have to go for is honesty, not complication.” By honesty he meant an openness to the music and to oneself that would transcend even a flawless technique.
Reaction to his European performances was strong. Playing in smaller halls meant that the band was in some cities for two or three nights, allowing publicity to build and the people to swarm. Once on a ship leaving Denmark for Sweden, Cohen was besieged by groups of teenage girls screaming for his autograph. He acceded to each request. In Iceland, he was received by the president, who held a reception in his honor. The band included two new vocalists, Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen. Batalla had performed with the Motels, Cheap Trick, and Ted Nugent; Christensen had a gutsy sound drawn from years of singing with L.A. jazz and rock bands. John Bilezikjian played oud; Bobby Furgo, violin and keyboards; Bobby Metzger, guitars; and Steve Meador, drums. Tom McMorran assisted with keyboards, and Stephen Zirkel with bass and trumpet. Roscoe Beck was the musical director.
In December 1988, Cohen was disturbed by the unexpected death of Roy Orbison, just as his career was reviving with the Traveling Wilburys. A few days later a memorial was held in the lobby of the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Cohen and Jennifer Warnes attended. Orbison had become the musical signature for Cohen’s 1988 tour. In rehearsal Cohen would tell the band to “
make it like Roy Orbison would do it,” which led to an onstage joke, “
Orbisize this song.” The musicians had a picture of Orbison pasted into their chart folder.
Cohen’s North American tour included the Théâtre St. Denis in Montreal, where, after his second performance, he met privately with former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Afterwards, Cohen told reporters
that they discussed “
what you have to do to get a good review in this town,” alluding to his mother’s comment concerning his 1971 performance in Montreal when he failed to get a single positive notice.
Cohen’s voice, like Dylan’s, had long been the subject of jokes and imitations. In “Tower of Song” Cohen defused criticism by deadpanning, “
I was born like this, / I had no choice, / I was born with the gift / Of a golden voice.” In concert, cheers and applause greeted his ironic declaration. It was the unmusicality of his voice, which makes his phrasing flat and his ability to shift registers impossible, that led to his becoming a songwriter. “
I think if I had one of those good voices, I would have done it completely differently. I probably would have sung the songs I really like rather than be a writer … I just don’t think one would have bothered to write if one could have really lifted one’s voice in song. But that wasn’t my voice. This is my voice.” A new self-confidence, if not happiness, began to seep through his persona of darkness. “
I’ve come a long way compared to the kind of trouble I was in when I was younger. Compared to that kind of trouble, this kind of trouble [the difficulty of songwriting] sounds like peace to me … I’m a lot more comfortable with myself than I was a while ago. I’m still writing out of the conflicts and I don’t know if they’ll ever resolve.”
A 1988 BBC film, “Songs from the Life of Leonard Cohen,” capitalized on his renewed profile. It combined concert footage with an interview, early film clips, and documentary footage from Hydra. The film lacked a unifying narrative, but it showed a much more relaxed and confident performer than the one seen in the 1972 film “Bird on the Wire.”
Cohen also performed on
Austin City Limits
, a one-hour concert filmed in Austin, Texas, for PBS television and appeared on David Sanborn’s late-night show in New York where he did a memorable duet with Sonny Rollins. When Rollins began a sensational saxophone solo on “Who By Fire,” Cohen turned his back to the camera to admire the jazz great. Taking advantage of his popularity, CBS
/
SONY reissued all of Cohen’s albums on CD
,
making
Various Positions
widely available for the first time and his earliest work accessible in the new digital format. At the age of fifty-four, Cohen was becoming a rock star.
————
IN 1989
Cohen’s work appeared as the centerpiece of a celebration of fifty years of Canadian Poetry in English at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa. The title of the exhibit was “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” and references to Cohen appeared throughout the catalogue. The opening paragraph described Cohen’s first book and its centrality to the exhibit’s theme, the title chosen “
as a tribute to Leonard Cohen and to all poets who have enriched Canada’s literary heritage over the last half century.” Cohen’s writing, the catalogue stated, “
links two vital periods in the history of modern poetry in Canada,” the period of the 1940s when the work of Raymond Souster, Irving Layton, and Louis Dudek opened Canadian poetry to international influences, and the 1960s when poet and audience were united through performance. That was a time when “
poetic voices became intensely personal,” challenging traditional forms. A later section highlighted Cohen’s “
romantic lyricism” and explained his move into popular music as “both natural and inevitable given his lyrical and accessible style.”
Despite the success of his album and recent honors, Cohen’s personal life continued to be plagued by unhappiness. Various women arrived and left. Sean Dixon, whom he first met at Rock Steady, the L.A. recording studio where he mixed
I’m Your Man
, spent a good deal of time with him and became a friend. He spent time with Claudia Kim and later with an Egyptian woman from Paris. His romantic world was framed by his breakup, reconciliation, and final separation from Dominique Issermann, and he was again depressed. A female friend attributed his inability to sustain a long-term relationship to his basic mistrust of and deep anger at women, originating, perhaps, with his mother, who tried to control him with tears and guilt and food. He was still bitter over his breakup with Suzanne, who had initiated a lawsuit staking financial claims (she already had a house in France and custody of the children). The suit was dismissed in court, but added to his mistrust of women.
Cohen was always in need of a relationship but each relationship was conducted on his stringent terms. He required commitment but couldn’t always offer it in return. He wanted intimacy, but he also wanted freedom. He was depressive and vulnerable and used his charm like a switchblade. Zen and romance, or Zen and Prozac, or Zen and whatever temporarily exorcised his demons. But they always returned. Throughout
the eighties Cohen continued to use drugs but they had taken the form of antidepressants and legitimate pharmaceuticals. There have been times when he could not get out of bed, when the storm in the brain, as William Styron described it in his book
Darkness Visible
, overtook him. Of his depression, Cohen said, “
That’s what it’s all about. Every day, every morning I face it, I try to deal with it.” He has resisted control, especially by women, and has not lived with a woman since Suzanne left. Some stay for a while, but none move their things into his home, nor does he move into theirs. He cannot commit himself to anyone but Roshi.
At those moments when “
he has no psychic skin,” he needs his private space. Sean Dixon recalls that in 1990 and 1991, when he was writing “The Future,” “Democracy,” and “Waiting for the Miracle,” she would often force him to leave his synthesizer to go out for food, but the company was not always pleasant. “
We would go out to lunch a lot and he would sort of sit there like a little zombie, mumbling to himself. And then he would recite lyrics now and then.” When she would bring him the news that Communism was falling, or that the Berlin Wall was going down, or that the president of Romania had been deposed, he would say, “
It’s hell, darling; you have no idea of what’s going to happen. It’s going to be very dark. Very bad things are going to come out of this. Believe me.” Dixon was exasperated: “
Leonard, you just can’t get happy about anything!”
When he read her the opening verses of “The Future,” she told him they were appalling. “
You can’t say things like that!” she exclaimed. But he didn’t listen, and gradually, she agreed with his point of view. As he predicted,
“
Things are going to slide in all directions / Won’t be nothing / Nothing you can measure anymore
.” After completing the lyrics to a song, he would occasionally go to the mini-studio at the Record Plant to experiment with the sounds and possibilities. And when he was fighting with a lyric, he would often ask anyone to help. Dixon remembers her contribution to “Waiting for the Miracle.” A line in the final verse read “If you’re pressed for information, / That’s when you’ve got to play it dumb.” She thought “pressed” was too mild and suggested “squeezed.” He liked the change and incorporated the word.
Cohen’s work was interrupted in 1990 by his son’s serious car accident in Guadaloupe. Adam Cohen had to be airlifted to a North York,
Ontario, hospital, where Cohen virtually lived for three months. The injuries were major, involving broken ribs, fractured vertebrae, and a damaged hip. The hiatus slowed Cohen’s normally stately artistic crawl to a halt, but after his son had recovered, Cohen returned to Los Angeles, eager to continue working.
Around Christmas of 1990, Cohen began his highly publicized winter-spring romance with the actress Rebecca De Mornay. Cohen says he first noticed De Mornay during a visit in the late sixties to the Summerhill school in England. He recalls a strikingly beautiful five-year-old girl who turned out to be De Mornay. She recalls that she first heard him sing when she was ten, when her mother played her one of his early albums. De Mornay went on to become tremendously adept as an athlete with skills in Tae Kwon Do, a Korean martial art, as well as horseback riding. After high school in Australia, she enrolled in Lee Strasberg’s Los Angeles acting institute and then continued her studies with Francis Ford Coppola at his Zoetrope Studios. She debuted in Coppola’s
One From the Heart
. Cohen was properly introduced to her in Paris in 1986 at a party given by Robert Altman and they became friends. By December 1990, they had begun a romantic relationship which lasted for more than three years, their twenty-eight-year age difference apparently no barrier.