So long Leonard

The cheek of him, now he was never exactly a champion of the workers or anything but I always thought there was something cool about Leonard Cohen. I am thinking for example about the song, First we take Manhattan where he laments, 'They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within'. Surely if ever there was a call for the abandonment of reformist policies in favour of revolutionary action this was it. He then goes on to out line a policy where 'First we take Manhattan and then we take Berlin.' Perhaps not the most developed or astute of policies but well intentioned nonetheless. It seems indeed to have a certain Maoist slant to it. As indeed does his rendition of the song The Partisan.

Of course Leonard Cohen was never really a revolutionary in anything but the musical sense. Not that you'd consider him a reactionary either but his bourgeois background was never exactly to the forefront of his music. Instead I always had an image of him dressed in a black suit and smoking du Maurier cigarettes and reminiscing about penetrations past. I mean that's all I was ever able to imagine him doing. Sitting, staring out a window, smoking, reminiscing, maybe getting a bit of a semi every now and again as he recollects yet another girl with a French name who he had had, possibly numerous times or, as in the case of Suzanne, never and wondering why all she had ever given him was tea and oranges.

I knew that he had gone up a mountain in California a while back and taken up residence in a Buddhist monastery (because of course that's where the conscientious Buddhist would build a monastery, California) and I just assumed it was because he could see further from the windows up there and that somehow this would aid his reminiscing.

However while he was up the mountain, smoking, looking out the window and reminiscing some sneaky fucker stole all his money. So Leonard had proved two things, it is possible to make millions from writing songs and poems about girls with French names, but being able to make it doesn't mean you'll be able to hang on to it. Perhaps the Buddhist God was trying to tell him something. (and yes they do have a God and yes it is a religion. Don't believe them just because they lie all the time).

So Leonard needed to come down form the mountain, like one of those bible characters he wrote songs about when he had run out of girls' names. However Leonard came down empty handed and needed to scavenge the earth so he could keep himself in the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. All those cigarettes and black suits cost money you know.

So in his wandering he ends up with some gigs in the O2 in Dublin and if you want to see him it's ninety Euro. Ninety fucking quid. Sweet sufferin' Jaysus. Ninety Euro! Here we are with sky-rocketing unemployment and he wants ninety quid off us. Twelve per cent unemployment and the dole of two hundred quid a week (about to be cut) and he wants ninety for the CHEAPEST ticket. That's 45 per cent of the weekly income of twelve per cent of the population.

Then I see an ad in the paper proclaiming that his greatest hits is being released. This however is the same greatest hits album that was released in 1974, I know it, I grew up listening to it. Cynical and depraved are words that come to my mind (to describe him, not me).

Sorry Leonard I don't know what happened to you up that mountain but I used to think you were cool. Sorry you couldn't take care of your money but I'm taking care of mine.