Leonard Cohen

My friend C gave me a wonderful birthday present: a DVD box with several ‘rockumantories’, documentaries about great musicians, pop and rock stars. It wasn’t hard to choose which one I to watch first: ‘Leonard Cohen, I am your man’.

An intimate, genuine and heartfelt portrait of the man, his spirit, the craftsmanship, his guru and the music. More importantly, the poetry. As Cohen says: ‘Poetry is just evidence of life. If life is burning well, poetry is just the ash’.

Bono is the most eloquent about Cohen:

‘Being a fan of Cohen has humbled and humiliated me, a song like Hallelujah brings you to your knees and at the same time it makes you laugh and that’s a shock - Lots of people, writers have dared to walk up to the edge of reason and stare into that great chasm, into the abyss..very few people have gone down there and kind of laughed out loud at what they saw – it’s the divine comedy’