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Leonard Cohen, Epic and Enigmatic Songwriter, Is Dead at 82

Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet and novelist who abandoned a promising literary career to become one of the foremost songwriters of the contemporary era, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 82.

Mr. Cohen’s record label, Sony Music, confirmed the death on Thursday night but provided no details on the cause.

Adam Cohen, his son and producer, said Mr. Cohen had died “with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records.” His final studio album, “You Want It Darker,” was released in October.

“He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor,” his son said.

Over a musical career that spanned nearly five decades, Mr. Cohen wrote songs that addressed — in spare language that could be both oblique and telling — themes of love and faith, despair and exaltation, solitude and connection, war and politics. More than 2,000 recordings of his songs have been made, initially by the folk-pop singers who were his first champions, like Judy Collins and Tim Hardin, and later by performers from across the spectrum of popular music, among them U2, Aretha Franklin, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley, Trisha Yearwood and Elton John.

Mr. Cohen’s best-known song may well be “Hallelujah,” a majestic, meditative ballad infused with both religiosity and earthiness. It was written for a 1984 album that his record company rejected as insufficiently commercial; it was popularized a decade later by Jeff Buckley.

Since then, some 200 artists, from Bob Dylan to Justin Timberlake, have sung or recorded it. A book has been written about it, and it has been featured on the soundtracks of movies and television shows and sung at the Olympics and other public events. At the 2016 Emmy Awards, Tori Kelly sang “Hallelujah” for the annual “In Memoriam” segment recognizing recent deaths.

。。。。。

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/obituaries/leonard-cohen-dies.html

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat

他属于乡村流派吗？乡村音乐我不懂，听过几次感觉也不错。

嗯，还真不好说。 中文维基把Cohen 的音乐归为“民间音乐、流行音乐”。
Cohen 2008年进入摇滚名人堂 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame，但他的音乐好像不同于坊间流行的摇滚乐。
Cohen 起先写小说和诗歌，后来谱曲作词。

不同流派的音乐都有好听的。

Leonard Cohen - Suzanne

很羡慕他的多才多艺。我们这一两代人所受教育残缺，极少有人能够这样。

Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan 都是犹太裔。：）

http://news.iciba.com/study/bilingual/1575456.shtml

传奇歌手莱昂纳德科恩去世 乐坛又少了一位诗人

“Everything has a crack in it, that's how the light gets in.”
-万物皆有裂缝，那是光进来的地方

温柔而深情，低沉而缱绻，他拥有一副与生俱来的金嗓子，有着一个为爱而生的老灵魂……他写诗，写给他的神;他唱歌，他唱给那些他爱的女人。人人都说他的歌是文青必修课，他的诗歌集《渴望之书》被李健带上了“我是歌手”的舞台……

他是作曲家，是诗人;他作曲，他唱歌;他又是小说家，是编剧……

他在今年九月刚刚发行了自己第14张专辑《《You Want It Darker》，他在《纽约客》的采访中说：
“I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”
“我已经做好了死亡的准备。我希望这事儿不要那么痛苦。其他就没什么了。”

然后就在今天，他真的永远离开了我们……

Leonard Cohen, the hugely influential singer and songwriter whose work spanned five decades, died at the age of 82. Cohen's label, Sony Music Canada, confirmed his death on the singer's Facebook page.
莱昂纳德•科恩，这位极具影响力的传奇歌手和词曲创作人离世，享年82岁。他所在的公司索尼在他本人的官方脸书主页上确认了这个消息。

"It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific visionaries. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief." A cause of death and exact date of death was not given.
“我们怀着沉痛的心情宣布，诗人、创作歌手和艺术家莱昂纳德•科恩去世了。我们失去了音乐界最值得尊敬和多产的远见家。择日将在洛杉矶举办科恩的悼念活动，科恩的家人希望能有私密的坏境来悼念他。”科恩的死因和具体死亡时间并未公布。

Cohen was the hugely influential singer to emerge in the Sixties and early Seventies. Only Bob Dylan exerted a more profound influence upon his generation, and perhaps only Paul Simon and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell equaled him as a song poet.
科恩是上世纪60年代到70年代初极具影响力的歌手，只有鲍勃•迪伦的影响力能胜过他。和他比肩的、可以称为“诗人”的歌手也只有保罗•西蒙(Paul Simon)和同是加拿大歌手的乔妮•米切尔(Joni Mitchell)。

Cohen's haunting bass voice that dealt with love and hate, sex and spirituality, war and peace, ecstasy and depression. He was also the rare artist of his generation to enjoy artistic success into his Eighties.
科恩嗓音低沉浑厚，演绎了爱恨、性爱和精神、战争与和平等众多歌曲。他也是在80岁高龄还能享有如此高成就的罕见传奇人物。


【关于诗，关于歌】

莱昂纳德•科恩生于1934年9月21日，加拿大魁北克省蒙特利尔的一个犹太人家庭。9岁的时候，父亲的早逝让莱昂纳德·科恩一生都带着矜持而忧郁的气质。

他很少笑，他从来都不快乐，他穿黑色西装，他不停的喝咖啡，不停的抽烟，他的眼神灼灼逼人“像两口深井反射着阳光”。

他出版过很多诗集：1961年的《The Spice Box Of Earth》(大地香盒)最为畅销;《Selected Poems: 1956-1968》(诗歌自选集)荣获Gover nor-General Award(加拿大最高文学奖);2011年的《渴望之书》闪烁着点滴幽默又真挚动人。

关于诗歌他说过：
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
诗乃生命的印记，倘使此生精彩，诗就是那灰烬。

很少有歌手能称得上诗人，具有诗人气质的几位里——吉姆·莫里森英年早逝黑暗迷幻，鲍勃迪伦功成名就任重道远……科恩的歌却永远是那么沧桑，那么孤独，没有起伏的音域或是绚烂的旋律，平淡、质朴、却源远流长……

他们都说他的歌是私密的，是私人的，拥有一颗躁动的心你永远听不懂他……独自一人的时候，你会感受到他的歌声如同缱绻而留的流水，漫入你的心里……

If you are the dealer I'm out of the game
如果你是庄家，那我就退出牌局
If you are the healer it means I'm broken and lame
如果你是医生，想必我就是一瘸一拐
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
如果你享受荣耀，那我只能忍受耻辱
You want it darker
如果你向往黑暗
We kill the flame
就让我们扑灭光明
Magnified sanctified be thy holy name
你的名字神圣而光辉
Vilified crucified in the human frame
血肉之躯却被折辱钉死
A million candles burning for the help that never came
千万支蜡烛祈求着无法降临的庇佑
You want it darker
如果你向往黑暗
Hineni hineni
我在这里，我在这里
——You Want It Darker


【关于自由，关于女人】

仿佛艺术家永远纠缠于两个命题——自由和女人。

关于自由的态度，其实在《the tower of song》中他已经说得再清楚不过了

I was born like this, 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
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don't let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song ”

对，他自恋，他害怕束缚，他狡黠幽默逃避沉默……而女人不就是这样吗?他越要逃开你越想追逐，他越是矜持犹豫你愈发深陷其中。

早在1966年他自己小说《美丽失败者》(Beautiful Losers)中他就提出：
“What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love.”
“圣人是什么?圣人就是能实现那些看似不可能的事情。然而我没法说出哪些是不可能的事。我想这可能和爱情的力量有关。 ”

科恩为她的情人们写歌，《Suzamme》、《So Long, Marianne》，《Bird on a Wire》那么深情，那么痛苦，他却无法和她们长久的走下去……

1975年在一段和保罗•威廉姆斯的采访中他提到：
“I think marriage is the hottest furnace of the spirit today. Much more difficult than solitude, much more challenging for people who want to work on themselves. It’s a situation in which there are no alibis, excruciating most of the time… but it’s only in this situation that any kind of work can be done.”
“我认为婚姻是世上最艰难的修行。比忍受孤独更难，对那些想要独立工作的人还更具挑战性。在这种情况下，没有借口，大部分时间令人痛苦不堪……但是只有在这种状态下，你想做的任何工作都能够完成。”

你可能一辈子都无法认同这样的他，但是你不得不承认，这样的他真真切切让人着迷，就像你听一遍《I’m your man》就会被打动——


【关于死亡】

他的情人，他的缪斯，他为她写歌的玛丽安娜·伊伦在今年早些时候离世了，8月科恩写给她的最后一封信中提到——
“We are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon.”
“我们真的已经太苍老了，我们的躯壳也在慢慢凋零，我觉得自己将随你而去了。”

如今他走了，留在我们心中的那个他还是那般优雅、从容，早在1984年的《哈利路亚》一曲中，他早对自己的一生有了一个最完整、最具诗意的总结：

“I did my best, it wasn’t much. I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch. I told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you. And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah…”
“我尽力了还不算多，我感觉不到，所以我设法碰触，我讲了实话，我没有来愚弄你们，尽管都错了，我在歌曲神明面前挺立，嘴边什么都没有，只有哈利路亚。”
--lyrics from his 1984 masterpiece, Hallelujah

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图文来源：沪江英语

Leonard Cohen - Dance me to the end of love (with lyrics)