As a New Generation Discovers Leonard Cohen's Dark Humour Kris Kirk Ruffles the Great Man's Back Pages by Kris Kirk
I stumbled out of bed. I got ready for the struggle. I smoked a cigarette, and I tightened up my gut. I said, This can't be me, must be my double. And I can't forget I can't forget I can't forget but I don't remember what. I Can't Forget I'm Your Man The following article is from Poetry Commotion, June 18, 1988. As a New Generation Discovers Leonard Cohen's Dark Humour Kris Kirk Ruffles the Great Man's Back Pages By Kris Kirk "The American attitude to Leonard Cohen is that I don't know how to sing -- 'These are great songs, sure is sad somebody else ain't singing 'em' - and that I'm marginal, totally outside the mainstream. It may finally be changing with this album, who knows? But I'm lucky I've always had a modest audience in Europe, otherwise I'd really be out of luck." Leonard Cohen chuckles. He chuckles a lot. Like his latest I'm Your Man album - with its famed "Lenny eats a banana" cover and its declaration (in "Tower of Song") that "I was born with the gift of a golden voice" - the so-called master of gloom is dead droll, particularly when he's sending himself up. "I agree this album's probably my best so far," he growls, lighting up yet another fag. "I think maybe I'm beginning to get the hang of it now." After how long? "Oh, after 20-odd years..." With a sell-out European tour culminating in a packed-to-the-gills additional third gig at the Royal Albert Hall, the rehabilitation -- resurrection from the dead -- of Cohen proceeds apace.
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