By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
Remembering Leonard Cohen
I met Leonard Cohen many times over the years. He lived close to my neighborhood and I’d see him shopping at Ralph’s or having dinner with his family at Le Petit Greek in Larchmont. But my relationship and odd connection dates back to the early 1970s when I was still living in Canada.
One blear fall day, I was writing in my home office and as you do during overcast, inclement weather put “the first album” on the turntable. When the second track began, my then-girlfriend Barbara stuck her head in and said “you know Leonard Cohen wrote that song for me and (her best friend) Lorraine.”
My banal response was on the order of “really.”
“Yes,” she said. “We were living in Edmonton. It was a rainy day and we were dancing and goofing around in the park downtown. After a while the doorman from the hotel approached us with an umbrella and said a guest in the hotel wanted to invite us in for tea.”
Barbara said that they were escorted in and taken up to a room where they met Leonard Cohen. The tea soon arrived and they sat and talked for a time. He then excused himself and went into another room; returning with a guitar. “That’s when he wrote ‘Sisters of Mercy’,” she concluded.
It was a stunning story and to be honest, my inner self was skeptical. But I didn’t dare question the tale’s authenticity. I had heard stories of another noted singer-songwriter’s history of bedding women and capping his conquest with a rendition of a song he written for “her” to a tune he’d written that easily adapted to any appropriate name. (Years later he would record it to a “rosie” conclusion)
Later that day Barbara produced a photo of herself and Lorraine flanking Cohen looking like drowned rats. Cohen had a broad grin that suggested he knew something personally pleasing.
Now the story moves forward two decades. My relationship with Barbara was long over and the last I heard she had moved to San Francisco with a new boyfriend. I was living in Los Angeles and married and my old ex-pat friend Vivienne invited us over for dinner. Among the ten or so guests was her old Montreal buddy Leonard Cohen and he was seated to my right.
I was determined not to be over-reverential and treat him as one would any new encounter at an informal sitdown. The conversation was pleasant; the mood buoyant. Coincidentally I had just read a long interview with him in a British publication and had a query. He had said that it took him weeks and months to write a song. Was that true? He laughed. “Some songs have taken me years,” Cohen replied. “A good day might produce a line,” he added with a smile. Then he said there were a few exceptions. “I was in Edmonton,” he began. “It was raining and I looked out my window and saw two young girls playing in the rain.”
Then Cohen proceeded to tell almost word-for-word the story Barbara had related years earlier. I was dumbstruck and when he finished I coughed out “Barbara was my girlfriend.” That took him aback… no further explanation was necessary and we both laughed; me nervously.
Wherever you are Barbara, I humbly offer an apology.
As to Leonard Cohen I will always remember his organic joy. I never saw him downbeat or depressed whether he was examining a cantaloupe on a shopping trip, performing at the Staples Center (or the more intimate Wiltern), walking in the street or at our most recent encounter at the Canadian Consulate. There won’t be any new songs or poems but who can claim such a rich, lasting legacy.
