By Steve Silkin
THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF LITERATURE has featured only the rarest examples of lyrics to songs that were played on the radio or stages of concert halls. Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” is one of them. Even divorced from the droning, wistful melody, the subtext evokes the lightness and weight of the ideal love an artist has for his muse. “And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind / And you know that she will trust you / For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.”
Cohen died on Nov. 7 at the Los Angeles home of his son Adam and daughter Lorca. He was 82. His passing follows the recent release of “You Want It Darker,” which Adam helped him produce at their upstairs studio while the great singer-songwriter was struck with limited mobility. The New Yorker profiled Cohen on the occasion of the album’s release. The writer of the profile was the magazine’s editor David Remnick, leader of the standard-bearing publication of American letters. Remnick wasn’t going to assign this baby. This one, he must’ve said to himself, is mine.
Let us take a brief tour of the man’s catalog. The obituaries noted that he was seen as the Continue reading “Leonard Cohen Is Not Gone”