Posted by Ian on 2009-07-11
in Anecdote
For father’s day from my kith and kin I requested a CD of Leonard Cohen – music to commit suicide by! If you don’t know him he’s a very mournful Canadian singer (actually more of a talker) who drones out songs about death, love, hate and other cheerful subject matters. Very poetic lyrics but all a little depressing.
I was expecting to receive his early greatest hit recordings, which was produced in 1975. However instead my wife opted to select Leonard Cohen Live in London, which was recorded almost exactly a year ago on 17th July, 2008.
My heart sank. In 2008 he was 73, compared to being under 40 when he wrote most of his great hits. Furthermore he had been out of action for quite a few years. Famously he spent several years in a hermitage; and when he came back down he discovered his accountant had fun off with all his money, leaving him essentially broke. One of the reasons he was forced to go back on tour.
And yet, I was more than pleasantly surprised. Because somehow he had adapted the songs to suit his age. It was a tour de force performance with one or two dry jokes in between – including suggesting the audience were both financially and geographically indisposed in coming to the concert: which I took to be a reference to his own temporarily parlous state.
Coincidentally I got a call yesterday from somebody who I used to work with in the comedy clubs. He’s principally a comedy writer now and doesn’t do all that much performing. However he said he was finding it hard to get any writing work commissioned at present – I guess the recession does hit all areas of show business – and was putting together his own one man show to possibly go back on the road.
I asked him if he was going to go back to doing the comedy clubs. But he wasn’t. But no, he did felt too old and out of touch with that type of audience – their own aspirations and interests having little in common with his own.
Somehow it was a happy juxtaposition of thoughts. My old colleague had summed up my own feelings - I was pleased to hear that I wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines. But that thought on my own might have rather depressed me. It could be argued that if you are no longer able to perform in the comedy clubs, then somehow you must be past your best.
However Leonard Cohen had proved that even when you reach your eighth decade you can still more than cut it. He had been out of the musical equivalent of the comedy clubs for many years and yet still managed to do a three hour sell-out, critically acclaimed show at the O2 Stadium.
So don’t write me off yet – there’s still life in the old dog!
I was expecting to receive his early greatest hit recordings, which was produced in 1975. However instead my wife opted to select Leonard Cohen Live in London, which was recorded almost exactly a year ago on 17th July, 2008.
My heart sank. In 2008 he was 73, compared to being under 40 when he wrote most of his great hits. Furthermore he had been out of action for quite a few years. Famously he spent several years in a hermitage; and when he came back down he discovered his accountant had fun off with all his money, leaving him essentially broke. One of the reasons he was forced to go back on tour.
And yet, I was more than pleasantly surprised. Because somehow he had adapted the songs to suit his age. It was a tour de force performance with one or two dry jokes in between – including suggesting the audience were both financially and geographically indisposed in coming to the concert: which I took to be a reference to his own temporarily parlous state.
Coincidentally I got a call yesterday from somebody who I used to work with in the comedy clubs. He’s principally a comedy writer now and doesn’t do all that much performing. However he said he was finding it hard to get any writing work commissioned at present – I guess the recession does hit all areas of show business – and was putting together his own one man show to possibly go back on the road.
I asked him if he was going to go back to doing the comedy clubs. But he wasn’t. But no, he did felt too old and out of touch with that type of audience – their own aspirations and interests having little in common with his own.
Somehow it was a happy juxtaposition of thoughts. My old colleague had summed up my own feelings - I was pleased to hear that I wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines. But that thought on my own might have rather depressed me. It could be argued that if you are no longer able to perform in the comedy clubs, then somehow you must be past your best.
However Leonard Cohen had proved that even when you reach your eighth decade you can still more than cut it. He had been out of the musical equivalent of the comedy clubs for many years and yet still managed to do a three hour sell-out, critically acclaimed show at the O2 Stadium.
So don’t write me off yet – there’s still life in the old dog!
