Leonard Cohen

And God spoke to Leonard. Like an old friend who knows you all too well, like someone who isn't fooled by the costume you're wearing. He gave him the gift of a golden voice, and a rent to pay in the Tower of Song.

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

To Leonard, who kindly teaches us to discern between the vessel and the fruit of the harvest, and who stands in the middle of the road pointing us toward the vineyard: happy birthday, and many happy returns of the day, until we all meet again in the One Great Return.

John Darnielle

The Mountain Goats – The Smokey Life

(“Old Ideas With New Friends”, Columbia 2012)

HUGO RACE

Back in the days of Love and Hate, Leonard was known as “Laughing Lenny”; no stranger to depression, he turned his inner darkness into confessional spectacle. Thanks to his ability to find a way to sing what we struggled to put into words (or preferred to run from), and to reflect our darkest thoughts with ironic humour, Leonard captivated us with his unfathomable wisdom.

Even though we felt he understood us better than we understood ourselves, he always spoke plainly – “I never had a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter.” Because Leonard never claimed to know the answers to the mysteries of the human soul; he simply offered observations, after having spent a long time at rock bottom, immersed in religious texts across the world's wildest and most far-flung places.

Sometimes I think he's still out there, and always will be; and yet he feels familiar to us in such a reassuring, fatherly way that it's easy to forget what he said back in 1967 – “I told you when I came I was a stranger”…

Happy birthday, maestro!

Hugo Race – A Thousand Kisses Deep

(“No But It’s True”, Rough Velvet 2012)

MARISSA NADLER

I first discovered Leonard Cohen through two rather unlikely sources. First the line in Nirvana's “Pennyroyal Tea.” Then Nina Simone's lively version of “Suzanne.” I was intrigued, and immediately went to an out-of-town mall to grab every Leonard Cohen cassette I could find. More than anything, I fell in love with his lyrics, if you can even call them that. He's been an incredibly influential figure in my life, and pretty much single-handedly steered me toward a specific kind of music. I listened to the delicate sound of the nylon-string guitar on his early albums, paired with the intimacy of how his voice was mixed, and I slowly drifted, stylistically, from what I liked back then toward the territory of refined poetry set to music.

Marissa Nadler – Winter Lady

(“Covers Volume II”, 2011)

OTHER LIVES

Happy birthday, Mr. Cohen. I gave your first record to a French woman… and now she's my wife. We thank you, along with generations to come, for your humanistic art and for being part of our everyday lives.

Jesse Tabish

Other Lives – The Partisan

(Live at KCRW, 2009)

SCOTT MATTHEWS

When I read Leonard Cohen's lyrics, incredibly vivid images come to my mind. His ability to write such beautiful music to accompany such a poetic play of words is something I aspire to enormously as a songwriter.

Scott Matthews – Seems So Long Ago, Nancy

(“The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered”, Mojo 2012)

WOODPIGEON

There are many things that make me proud to have been born in Canada, and all of them are immovable and imposing: the mountains, the vastness of the landscapes, the two oceans. Among those things are also a few artists I'm proud to call fellow countrymen, and right at the top of that pyramid is Leonard Cohen. There are few artists I find so richly inspired in their lyrics – and rightly famous for it – but Cohen's approach to a hook and a melody is also full of hidden surprises, which will ensure his musical gems remain collective earworms for generations to come. I wish him all the best for his eightieth birthday, and I can't wait to write more words of celebration for him on his ninetieth, his hundredth, his hundred-and-tenth…

Mark Andrew Hamilton

Woodpigeon – Chelsea Hotel #2

(“The Bard Of Montreal”, Herohill 2012)

RADAR BROS

When I was in my freshman year of college, in the late Eighties, a friend lent me "Songs From A Room". That record became the soundtrack of my formative years and pushed me to buy everything else Leonard Cohen ever made. I went through a really hard time when my grandmother died (we were very close) and my father decided to marry an evil demon. It felt like I had no family left. One Halloween night I was dressed up as Jesus and I sank into a dark, drug-induced trip. It left me with panic attacks for the whole following year. Leonard Cohen's songs were the only thing that could give me any comfort. Thank you Leonard Cohen.

Jim Putnam

Radar Bros – The Guests

(“Stay”, Restless 1997)

THE BURNING HELL

Dear Mr. Cohen,

I've been listening to your music my whole life, but thanks to a frustrating combination of geography and poverty, it's only been a couple of years since I was finally able to see you live. It was the greatest show I've ever seen or heard, and if that night had been the only time you ever brought your music into the world, we would still have every reason to thank you for such a precious gift. You know, that evening was so beautiful that I almost gave up going to any other concert ever again - of course I didn't, but that show in Ghent remains the best for me, and it probably always will. You were only 78 back then. What a spring chicken! Anyway, I heard that "Death Of A Ladies' Man" wasn't much fun for you to make, but thanks all the same for all those "Memories".

Mathias Kom

The Burning Hell – Memories

(“The Bard Of Montreal”, Herohill 2012)

As a teenager, digging through my parents' record collection, I stumbled upon a copy of Leonard Cohen's "Greatest Hits", tucked between albums by Elvis Presley and Skeeter Davis. I took it with me when I left home for college. Since then I've moved to London and to plenty of other new places. With every move, another record has joined the collection... "Songs Of Love And Hate" and "Songs From A Room" among my favourites.

The quiet power of songs like "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" and "Famous Blue Raincoat" has only grown stronger over the years, and their ability to say so much with just a handful of words still amazes and inspires me today.

"Avalanche" represents another shade of Leonard Cohen, a more brutal side of the coin, and recording a version of this song let me glimpse just the tiniest fraction of that wonderful world.

(“The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered”, Mojo 2012)

A SINGER OF SONGS

Dear Mr. Cohen,

there are many reasons I'm grateful for your eighty years of life. But the most important one is probably that I fell in love for the first time thanks to you and your songs.

She was travelling on a slow bus from Vienna to Brussels in the mid-Nineties. I couldn't read because I was feeling sick. I couldn't watch the film on the tiny TV screen because it was dubbed into Hungarian. So I pulled out my old Walkman (cassette tapes were still common in the Nineties, even if they weren't cool) and listened to my favourite tape of the time.

I had already been travelling in silence like that for hundreds of kilometres when the girl sitting next to me tapped me on the shoulder. I hadn't even noticed her, even though she was blonde, beautiful, alone and Hungarian. She asked me what I'd been listening to non-stop for the past three hours, flipping the tape over every 45 minutes. "The Blue Moods Of Spain", I told her. A brilliant album by a band called Spain. She didn't know the record, so I told her my Walkman had two headphone jacks (such a simple, wonderful invention) and offered to let her listen along with me.

So we listened to Spain sing their magical songs through our separate headphones, and I watched her close her eyes and disappear into the peace of the music. I usually bought ninety-minute tapes. The Spain album ran about sixty minutes, so I had thirty minutes left over when I recorded the tape. And I'd filled it with another of my favourite albums: a collection of Leonard Cohen songs.

I had grown deeply fond of your songs. Then fondness turned into worship, and worship turned into obsession. As it turned out, I wasn't the only one obsessed with you on that bus. So when "So Long, Marianne" suddenly came through our headphones, she opened her eyes, looked at me in astonishment and... smiled when she recognised it. You sang for another thirty minutes, and when "Lady Midnight" faded into silence she kept repeating the words "You've won me, my Lord" over and over and over again.

Our story didn't last long, but it was steeped in beauty and tenderness. At our next date she gave me a book of your poems. We listened to your songs through our separate headphones as we walked around London, where she lived. We wrote each other long letters, often quoting your lyrics. And when things fell apart, I ended my letter with the full lyrics of "There Is A War".

Happy birthday, Mr. Cohen. And thank you for the songs, the stories, the wisdom, and the words that guide without ever commanding.

Lieven Scheerlinck

A Singer Of Songs – A Singer Must Die

(“The Corner I Seek Is A Place Where No One Meets”, 2011)

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV

Leonard,

there aren't enough words to express my admiration and gratitude for your songs and your poems. For now I'll just say happy birthday. I hope it's the best one yet. May all your wishes come true.

Gregory Alan Isakov – One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong

(“This Empty Northern Hemisphere”, 2009)

I once gave Leonard a copy of "Song And Void", my second record. I used to pull stunts like that all the time. I waited for him along with a couple of other weirdos outside Joe's Pub, like some kind of stalker. He was getting into a car. I handed him my CD and said something to him. He thanked me.

“I once was lost, then found, and now I’m lost again” (“Amazing Grace”).

I'm 38 now, still restless, still confused, still hungry. I've got no time for some bullshit U2 album, and I'm sick of seeing Nick Cave's face. He can go to hell. I gave him a copy of "Song And Void" too. I ran into him by chance at the Time Warner Center. I think he was browsing around a Benetton store. Nick Cave at the mall, browsing Benetton. He was embarrassed, and didn't know how to handle my embarrassment.

Richard McGraw – Ain’t No Cure For Love

("Popular Music", 2012)

Dear Mr. Cohen,

happy birthday! We love the new album! We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your courage and your vision as an artist... And since we're busy with a touring musical show that pays tribute to your songs, thanks for all the concerts!

We can't wait to send you our new record, "In City And In Forest", we hope you like it!

Tower Of Song (Oliver Swain & Glenna Garramone)

Tower Of Song – The Stranger Song

(“In City And In Forest”, 2014)

JOHN STATZ

I discovered "New Skin For The Old Ceremony" back in college, and I'm pretty sure I listened to it on (digital) repeat until my hard drive gave out. That record taught me that songwriting doesn't have to be clear-cut and straightforward, that you can take it wherever you want. It's been about a decade since college now, but I still play "Chelsea Hotel #2" at my shows.

John Statz – Chelsea Hotel #2

(“An Evening With John Statz”, 2008)

LLOYD COLE

Thank you for the songs, Mr. Cohen. "Sincerely, LC".

Lloyd Cole – Famous Blue Raincoat

(“Rare On Air, Vol. 2”, Mammoth 1995)

– Bonus track –

JOHNNY CASH (in memoriam)

If Johnny Cash were still here, perhaps he would have sung “Bird On The Wire” once more for his friend Leonard Cohen.

“Johnny Cash talked to me for a long, long time,” Cohen recalls. “His is one of the sweetest voices in my mind. Even after a song has ended you keep hearing him, you see him fighting for what we need and for what we love. He's always there, the highest figure in the circle of integrity, the deepest voice when night falls, and the bravest glance of wisdom amid wild confusion.”

Through the voice of the Man in Black, the lyrics of “Bird On The Wire” ring out with the force of a hymn. Never stop trying, in your own way, to be free, Leonard. Happy birthday!

Johnny Cash – Bird On The Wire

(“American Recordings”, American 1994)

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