Leonard Cohen

 Tomorrow, November 7 is the anniversary of Leonard Cohen's death. 

I can't think of any reason why anyone else but me should care but Leonard and I go way back. We never met. I wasn't even much of a fan before 1984. There was one song and it's a pretty clichéd song to pick.

 I was eight years old the year "Suzanne" came out. I doubt I even noticed it that year. I should be ashamed to admit this (I'm not ashamed) the first version I ever heard may have been Neil Diamond's, which came out the year I was twelve. Then again, it's one of those songs that feels like it's always been there.

I never owned a recording of the song until I was in my twenties. You used to be able to count on the radio playing certain older songs every once in a while. Suzanne was one of them and it would come on and I'd turn it up.

I remained a Catholic because of these verses:

And Jesus was a sailor 

When he walked upon the water

And he spent a long time watching

From his lonely wooden tower.

 

And when he knew for certain 

Only drowning men could see Him

He said, "All men will be sailors then

Until the sea shall free them."

 

But he himself was broken

Long before the sky would open

Forsaken, almost human

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.

 That may not make sense to anyone but me. It's our fallen condition. Jesus came to save sinners. 

Anyway,

There was a time I went to Montreal because of an interview he gave in which he described the writing of that song. He said it was a simple description of what you see if you to the sailor's chapel in Montreal. The sailor's chapel is Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours.  I went. Leonard didn't let me down. It is a simple description of what you see.