Latest from the Blog
The Lord of Song: “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song”
Before Cohen and Lissauer went into the studio to record, the song had already had an early life of its own – a kind of painful adolescence. Light recounts the story of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen meeting in Paris. “Dylan asked me how long it took me to write,” Cohen reported. “I told him…
“When they poured across the border:” Reflections on Leonard Cohen & Ilya Kaminsky
I’ve just finished reading Sylvie Simmons’ excellent biography, I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, and have been reflecting on the magnificent sweep of his career.
‘I only am escaped alone to tell thee’: Bob Dylan’s Tempest
With Bob Dylan turning 80 last month, when I thought of a song to revisit, my mind went almost immediately to the title track on his penultimate album of original music, Tempest (2012). The song charts the sinking of the Titanic a century earlier in April 1912, and is based on a ballad by The…
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