IF IT BE YOUR WILL a Radio Documentary Featuring Leonard Cohen
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1 IF IT BE YOUR WILL A radio documentary featuring Leonard Cohen By Kari Hesthamar Technical direction: Kåre Johan Lund Consultant: Berit Hedemann Music COHEN: Just fooling around, just remembering. Just remembering. I forget what these songs are, I really got to learn them again. NARRATOR: Leonard Cohen has forgotten his old songs. He hasn't played them in 12 years. Now he's sitting at home in his little house and trying to play, because I would like it so much. COHEN: Dog barks It’s from ”If it be Your Will”, but I don’t remember it. I have to learn it. Waves NARRATOR: There are no waves here. But if you wish, there are. COHEN: I've been blessed with amnesia, I hardly remember anything from the past. I don’t have any good memories or bad memories. NARRATOR: Leonard Cohen says he has been blessed with memory loss. That he doesn't remember anything. COHEN: Do you want some of this? Shall I cut you a piece? INTERVIEWER: Yes please. COHEN: What do you feel like, a little bit of everything? NARRATOR: I wanted to ask questions and make him remember. But he had warned me in an email before my arrival. ”My memory isn’t all that good.” COHEN: My life has always felt the same. One day bleeds into another. It’s been a lot of sunlight. And then just working. It seems to be the… My inner voice seems to be saying ”make something” ! NARRATOR: His inner voice says ”make something”! Something beautiful or important or unimportant. Just make something! One day bleeds into the next, and life has always felt the same. Don't know when this morning begins or when this evening will end. Just a few things stand out from the canvas. When your children were born, or the first time you entered the stage with your guitar. 2 Music If it be Your Will From this broken hill I will sing to you From this broken hill All your praises they shall ring If it be your will To let me sing Telephone rings COHEN: Yes, my daughter, what is it? How are you, sweetheart? Forget it, darling. Is Daniel here? Dog barks He’s at your store? Ok, sweetheart. Thanks a lot. Speak to you later. Bye. Those aren’t my daughter’s dogs. Those are the naughty neighbour's dogs. INTERVIEWER: Your dogs are the nice ones? COHEN: My dogs are the nice ones. Waves NARRATOR: There is no beach. No moon above the ocean. Just a villa suburb of Los Angeles. Small gardens, playing dogs. A daughter in the basement apartment. And Leonard Cohen, 71 years old and tacit. Thin, a little shorter than me. In a grey suit and white shirt. NARRATOR: But what was he like before, as a young poet? COHEN: What was I like as a young man? I don’t know. I had a calling. I wanted to be a writer, from very very early time I just knew I was going to be a writer. And it was a writer not in the popular culture, on the contrary, it was a very…, it was a writer whose allegiance was to writers who were already dead. NARRATOR: To write, always write, born with a golden tongue. Write for the old great poets. Be one of them. COHEN: I just wanted to be one of those guys that did that kind of thing. And my feeling was that if I did those things with the kind of integrity, and the gift would be given me. I wouldn’t have to worry about my life, there would be money, there would be women. Not in any abundance, but there would be enough for me. Music I was born like this Tower of Song I had no choice I was born with the gift of a golden voice And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond They tied me to this table right here In the Tower of Song 3 COHEN: I’ve never had much to say. So I just keep working on something till something arises that is better than me. Better than my thought. NARRATOR: Never had a choice, never made a real choice. Life just unfolded of its own accord. Music Tower of Song I was born like this, I had no choice NARRATOR: Always the same. Write a page. Finish a song. COHEN: There is nothing like ending something, like a song, or a book or a record. There are periods when you don’t believe that you’re ever going to finish it, things are just not going well. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any plans of making a new record with your own voice on it? COHEN: Oh yes, I’m just starting it now. I have high hopes. laughs I don’t know. I need 10 songs or something like that, you know. I have to fill up 50 minutes, and you want it to be good, you know, so I’m going to give it a try. Waves NARRATOR: I wanted to take him back to an island in Greece. I had made a documentary about Cohen's old-time sweetheart Marianne, his Norwegian muse. Her that he met on the Greek island of Hydra and gave the song ”So Long Marianne”. I had brought along the programme on a CD and an English transcript. INTERVIEWER: Would you like to listen to the beginning of the documentary? COHEN: Sure. Let’s hear it. NARRATOR: I wanted him to be able to hear the great love of his youth tell her story, and get him to remember. INTERVIEWER: So that’s the script. COHEN: Thank you. Can you put it loud? Music/Marianne sings along on ”So Long, Marianne” COHEN: Very good. Marianne sings along MARIANNE: I was standing in the shop with my basket waiting to pick up bottled water and milk. And he is standing in the doorway with the sun behind him. And then you don't see the face, you just see the 4 contours. And so I hear his voice, saying: ”Would you like to join us, we’re sitting outside?” But I remember well that when my eyes met his eyes I felt it throughout my body. You know what that is. Drums her fingers It is utterly incredible. Whispers COHEN: She’s terrific. It is her way of telling a story. It’s just delightful. There wasn’t a man who wasn’t interested in Marianne. And there wasn’t no one who wasn’t interested in approaching that beauty and that generosity. She was a traditional Nordic beauty, that was indisputable. But she was also very kind, and she was one of the most modest people about her beauty. You know, looking at her from a distance of 40, 45 years almost, I see how very rare those qualities are. And she just knew things about the moment, about graciousness, about service, about hospitality, about generosity. And she had that other side too, where she drank wine and danced and became wild and beautiful and threatening and dangerous, you know, if you were a man with her. movement You’re hungry now, darling? INTERVIEWER: We’ve been talking so much, so I just grabbed the opportunity to finish my cake.. COHEN: Yeah, have a little. Marianne doesn’t know, but this is her corkscrew. And we got this one together. INTERVIEWER: Where is it from? COHEN: I think it’s… I don’t know, but it looks Norwegian to me. unscrews cork This isn’t a very good wine, but it is ok. pours wine Skål! Cheers! INTERVIEWER: Skål! There you see, you have a good memory, you can recall. COHEN: I could come up with this stuff if you ask me specifically. INTERVIEWER: You’ve given many interviews during the years… COHEN: Not for a long time. I haven’t given any interviews for a long time. NARRATOR: Not given interviews for a long time. Says he doesn't remember anything, that the past doesn't interest him. But those memories that are worth anything, one stores, surely, to be able to bring them out and look at them once in a while? I was searching for the past. He believes in the power of the moment. COHEN: The cordiality of the moment is much more important than the content. But, you know, I accept that I can’t really rise to the occasion, it’s just the way it is. It’s not exactly a lie what I’m saying, it’s just not deep enough. 5 NARRATOR: Feels it is difficult to formulate any truth about what is and what has been, but does the best he can. COHEN: We’re in this together, I want to make this as good as we can. Dials a phone number I’ll just invite Daniel. -Daniel, do you have any wood? Listen, this is Leonard in case you haven’t noticed. How are you, man? Good. If you’d like to come up for shabbas dinner tonight you’re most welcome, there’s a few people coming up. NARRATOR: Cohen invites guests for his regular Friday night dinner. COHEN: So come up around 6.30. You can make yourself a drink. NARRATOR: Family. Friends. COHEN: You know what to do. NARRATOR: Traditional Jewish food. COHEN: Ok, man. Later. Music. Leonard Cohen improvises on guitar I don’t know what I could play for you. Improvises Well, I must have been in my late twenties, or beginning 30, and I had just come to the realisation that I couldn’t make a living.