Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
by David Fear | 00.00.0000

He's been called a poet, a pop singer, a chronicler of heartbreak (and a heartbreaker), a troubadour, a national treasure, a misanthrope and a recluse. In fact, there are few things that Leonard Cohen has not been called at one time or another, and even the claim from his legion of apostles that he's the greatest living songwriter known to man, woman and beast is met by at least as many detractors. When it comes down to the brassiest of all tacks, there are simply the words. The man writes lyrics dense and dizzying in their scope, detailing the agony and ecstasy of love with eloquence, wit and unflinching verve. Not even a rather monotone delivery (the chief criticism against Cohen) or his Eeyore-like tendency to dwell on the darker aspects of human existence (most-common-complaint #2) can dampen the giddy sense of hearing language put to a beat and bent to the will of pure emotional expression. Translation: The man can fucking write.

Those folks still neck deep in denial over Cohen's prowess with papyrus reed, a pen and a thought need only sit down and listen - no, this time, really listen - to what's being said in the songs of Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a documentary that's part concert film and part personal confessional. Performance footage from a tribute concert in Sydney, Australia in January 2005 demonstrates how Cohen's lyrics can bring out the best in other singers. Witness Nick Cave as he swings through the title tune, or Beth Orton and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker vamp operatically through "Death of a Ladies'Man", or as Antony Hagerty (of Antony and the Johnsons) turns "If It Be Your Will" into a religious experience. There are also interpretations of classic Cohen tunes done by Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson (songwriter son of legendary folk-rock pair Richard and Linda), the Handsome Family and the McGarrigle sisters, which all do justice to the legacy of Leonard.

But the coup is that director Lian Lunson got Mr. Cohen himself to open up about his life for the camera, letting the intensely private man give a first-person account of what many others have mythologized and misconstrued. His childhood, his years as a hotshot poet in Montreal, his successes and failures, his self-imposed exile (for spiritual reasons) at a Zen Center for much of the '90s and his return to the limelight: all in his own words. What viewers are left with is a complex figure mulling over his history while fellow artists, in interviews and cover versions, pay homage to their man.

Do you remember the first time you heard Leonard's music?
Teddy Thompson: The first time I heard Leonard's songs were on a tribute album called Famous Blue Raincoat by Jennifer Warnes. It was a favorite of my mum. I think it helped that I was hearing his words sung by someone with such a pretty voice. When you're 12 years old, if youÕre exposed to Leonard Cohen straight with no chaser, you're probably going to be turned off: "Who is this guy? He can't even sing!" [laughs] It's not immediately accessible. But my god, his words...they sort of hang in the air, and yet there's this weight to them. His lyrics are heavy, but not in a suffocating way. They're profound.
Rufus Wainwright: I was probably around 16; my sister, Martha, had really gotten into his I'm the Man album, so I'm guessing it was a song from that. I was a real opera fanatic -it was my budding gay aesthete phase [laughs]- so I really didn't care for most of the albums she listened to at that point. But that one really, really shot out...there was something very different about it.


Was it his lyrics or his music that caught your ear?
RW: Both. There was this kind of darkness there that I gravitated towards, and because of my opera fixation, I was listening to so much music where I couldn't understand the words, that when Leonard came around, I needed some of that in my life. So much pop music has such crappy lyrics. His were serious.


Well, there aren't a lot of former poets going into pop music.
RW: True.
TT: There's no one else doing what he does in the music world. Dylan would be his only peer, I think. It's those two, and then there's just...everyone else.
Lian Lunson: The first time I heard his music was during the punk days. It sounds strange, but most of my friends who were listening to the Sex Pistols were listening to Leonard Cohen around the same time, which is pretty indicative of who Leonard is as a person, I think. There were lots of "punksters", as he calls them, who really loved his records.


Really?! Leonard says that in the movie, but I thought he was kidding.
LL: No, punks really dug Leonard Cohen. Folks like Nick Cave - when he was in his first band the Boys Next Door - used to cover Leonard's tunes back in the day. And if anyone is the heir to Leonard, it's Nick. He's very much a songwriter in that vein. Nick was actually petrified of doing "Suzanne" because he reveres it so much, and he didn't want the responsibility of handling it. And when you see him finally relax into those words...


But Nick seems to really enjoy being the front person of a band. And you get the sense that Cohen doesn't. He almost seems embarrassed by being labeled as a singer.
LL: Well, Leonard's background is rooted in the poetry scene in Montreal in the '60s, and they took themselves very seriously as poets. When he came to New York, it was an eye-opener: "I can write songs here and be somebody?" So he sort of got thrust into that world. He's never really embraced it.


What was it about his music that appealed to you?
LL: I think, because I'm a girl [embarrassed laughter], it was that he was so dashing, so bright and so introspective. I loved the wit of the songs too but as a young girl...um, the way he presented himself was the first attraction.

You might not be the only woman to think that.
LL: Probably not.

How did you get involved in the concert and the film?
TT: It was through the producer Hal Willner. I'm not sure how I first met him, or why he thought I'd be good for it, honestly. But he called me up and asked me to do it. I can't remember what songs he'd originally asked me to do, but for reasons I can't remember, I think I rejected them. Then I asked him if I could do "The Future" and "Tonight Will Be Fine", the second of which is in the film.
RW: As you can see in the film, my entire family was in the show, so it made sense that I'd perform. My mother basically roped me into it. I'm pretty good friends with Hal and I've been a friend of the Cohen family for years, too, so that may have been why Hal thought I'd have an interesting perspective.

Sure, but it seems like a good fit. I can hear a lot of Leonard's influences in your music...
RW: Not to come off as pompous or arrogant, but I would also say that, in a weird way, he's one of the few songwriters who I feel have been influenced by me.

Oh, really?
RW: Well, there was a brief time when I was staying with him in his house in L.A. And when my records would come out, I'd always hear him listening to them. There always seemed to be certain songs that he'd gravitate toward; I'd hear him playing a few tunes over and over again. Which, besides being monumentally flattering, was a sign that Leonard is still very much a living, breathing artist, being so interested in new work and other people's ideas.

Did you feel any pressure playing the songs of someone you respect as a songwriter so much?
TT: I didn't, but then again, I wasn't doing songs that are considered such important songs in so many people's lives. I mean, "The Future" is well known, but it's a relatively new song and much less daunting compared to most of Leonard's back catalogue. I won't say I went out of my way to find obscurities, but I did spend some time looking for something that wasn't so ingrained in everybody's psyches, mine included. I wanted something that would be a little easier to make my own.

I feel bad for the person who had to do "Bird on a Wire."
TT: Yeah, that one...would be rough [laughs].
RW: "Chelsea Hotel" was one that I felt particularly attached to, since I had lived in the Chelsea Hotel for a while. And I also had experience with the song's subject matter in terms of the wretched world of show business. I'd remember hearing "Everybody Knows" and suddenly having this Doris Day vision once [chuckles] so I thought it would be fun to do it very campy. Everyone thinks Leonard is so morose, but if you up the tempo in his songs, you can see there's comedy in there. "Hallelujah" was something I'd been performing for years, so that was a given.

Were you worried about performing a song like "Hallelujah" that's now associated with not one, but two very distinct singers?
RW: I don't think there's any way I could match Jeff Buckley's version of it if I tried; if people think of him when I sing it, that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I know John Cale has covered "Hallelujah" as well, and there have been others who've done wonders with that particular song. I don't want to brag, but...[dramatic pause]...Leonard says my version is his favorite! [laughs] And that has certainly been an impetus to keep performing it regardless.

This isn't just a concert film, but also a very revealing portrait of Leonard's life. He's known for being a private person, but he really opens up here.
LL: I thought it would be amazing to film the show in Sydney, but if I was going to do something on it, I wanted to get Leonard involved. If I could juxtapose his story with these songs - they are like snapshots, a musical photo album - it would be a far more interesting project than just doing a concert film. I assumed that getting access to him would be impossible, but we managed to meet up. And we both sort of hit it off to the point where I was hanging out with him on a regular basis, which was when I started bringing my camera along. He didn't care: "You want to film us talking? Sure, go ahead."

Was there anything from the show that you wished you could have kept in?
LL: God, so much! There was a beautiful rendition of "Bird on a Wire" by Perla Batalla that we ended up leaving out. We already had a lot of footage of Rufus doing some very poignant songs, so we decided not to include him and the McGarrigle sisters doing "Who By Fire". Antony Hagerty's take on "The Guests", which brought the house down.

Antony's cover of "If It Be Your Will" is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
LL: Hal had only added him to the lineup a week before, because Laurie Anderson couldn't make the show; she'd done those two songs at the concerts in Brighton and Brooklyn.
TT: A lot of people, myself included, were just hearing Antony for the first time at that show. He hadn't quite hit it big yet. So to see someone who was relatively unknown just come out and play those songs the way he did... There are some performances from that day that were absolutely amazing, but they don't quite come across on camera with the same power that they do live. Something gets lost along the way. But his version of "If It Be Your Will" certainly translates. It's spellbinding.
LL: When he came out and did that first number, "The Guests", the audience was just floored by him. I was standing at the side of the stage, filming him singing "If It Be Your Will", and I turned to say something to my crew...and they were in tears. When I was in the editing room, every time I'd try to cut the footage of that song, I'd end up bawling.

I hate asking you to pull a Sophie's Choice here, but do you have any particular favorites among the performances included in the film?
LL: I love Perla and Julie Christensen's "Anthem", I love Teddy's "Tonight Will Be Fine"...and Nick Cave's version of "Suzanne" really is astounding. Those three immediately come to mind, but it changes every few days.

Once you started making the film and got to know him, was there anything about Leonard that surprised you?
LL: He's a really funny guy, which counters the public's perception of him as Mr. Doom-and-Gloom. And he always insists on cooking for you. The minute you walk in the door, it's: "What can I get you to eat?"

You don't expect the guy who wrote "Everybody Knows" to be whipping up meals for guests at the drop of a hat.
LL: Oh, he's got skills in the kitchen. -F