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Leonard Cohen

In: Film and Music

Submitted By jeromejamz
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Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen was born on September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He started playing music in his teenage years by learning how to play guitar, at around the same time he started to write poetry and novels as well. As a middle aged man, Cohen had become intrigued by the Greenwich Village folk scene and, with his background in music and writing, music composition was a natural step. He soon began to compose and release folk-rock and pop songs. Leonard Cohen is not famously known for his singing abilities, instead his unique voice tone in songs he sings, as exemplified by our choir class as well as critiques. Cohen’s most popular song by far was Hallelujah which is even now a TV talent competition staple, who’s many ironies include the fact that its parent album was rejected by his record company in 1983. Hallelujah's path to ubiquity has so many meanders that there is an entire book devoted to it. Hallelujah even appeared in the movie Shrek boosting its popularity as Shrek was one of Disney’s biggest hit. His other songs did not reach quite far as Hallelujah as he is commonly referred to as “that guy who wrote Hallelujah”. Though Hallelujah was the most popular Cohen song, it was no necessarily the best song that he wrote What makes him distinctive is that he is both a poet and an artist, but those are not the only factors that make him different. His type of music is folk music, but unlike other artist his music does not specifically stick to folk music. It strays away from folk into a bit of gospel, pop and rock. The piece we sang, Hallelujah fits perfectly into the kind of music he writes. He write about love and hate, his album is also named “Love and Hate”, in many of his song he is constantly on a quest into searching for something and expressing it through his poetic skills and musical talents. Hallelujah is about a man who expresses the difficulty in finding a singular personal quest for truth as a spiritual seeker and as a creative artist bounded by human desire, which is love. He is "overthrown" by the beauty of the woman bathing on the roof and intoxicated with desire for her yet with that comes compromise. He is tied to a kitchen chair suggests being bound to domesticity and having his hair cut refers to the bible story of Samson whose strength was lost when Delilah cut his hair. He feels he has sacrificed his power for momentary sexual desire, emotional needs and freedom from the burden of loneliness.

Works Cited

"The 10 Best Leonard Cohen Songs." Stereogum RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 June 2014.

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 01 June 2014. ss "Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah Lyrics Meaning." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 June 2014.

"Leonard Cohen Biography | Rolling Stone." Rolling Stone. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 June 2014.

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