87 Facts About Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist.

Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Leonard Cohen was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour.

Leonard Cohen's 1977 record Death of a Ladies' Man, co-written and produced by Phil Spector, was a move away from Cohen's previous minimalist sound.

In 1979, Leonard Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz, East Asian, and Mediterranean influences.

I'm Your Man in 1988 marked Leonard Cohen's turn to synthesized productions.

In 1992, Leonard Cohen released its follow-up, The Future, which had dark lyrics and references to political and social unrest.

Leonard Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of Ten New Songs, a major hit in Canada and Europe.

In 2005, Leonard Cohen discovered that his manager had stolen most of his money and sold his publishing rights, prompting a return to touring to recoup his losses.

Leonard Norman Cohen was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Westmount, Quebec, on September 21,1934.

Leonard Cohen's parents gave him the Jewish name Eliezer, which means "God helps".

Leonard Cohen attended Roslyn Elementary School and completed grades seven through nine at Herzliah High School, where his literary mentor Irving Layton taught.

Leonard Cohen then transferred in 1948 to Westmount High School, where he studied music and poetry.

Leonard Cohen became especially interested in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca.

Leonard Cohen involved himself actively beyond Westmount's curriculum in photography, on the yearbook staff, as a cheerleader, in the arts and current events clubs, and even served as president of the Students' Council while heavily involved in the school's theatre program.

Leonard Cohen would sing with us when I took my guitar to a restaurant with some friends; my mother would come, and we'd often sing all night.

Leonard Cohen frequented Montreal's Saint Laurent Boulevard for fun and ate at places such as the Main Deli Steak House.

Leonard Cohen enjoyed the raucous bars of Old Montreal as well as Saint Joseph's Oratory, which had the restaurant nearest to Westmount.

Leonard Cohen would read his poetry at assorted nearby clubs.

In 1951, Leonard Cohen enrolled at McGill University, where he became president of the McGill Debating Union and won the Chester MacNaghten Literary Competition for the poems "Sparrows" and "Thoughts of a Landsman".

Leonard Cohen's first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation.

The book contained poems written largely when Leonard Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Leonard Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.

Leonard Cohen described his graduate school experience as "passion without flesh, love without climax".

Leonard Cohen continued to write poetry and fiction throughout the 1960s and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf.

Leonard Cohen was the subject of a 44-minute documentary in 1965 from the National Film Board called Ladies and Gentlemen.

Leonard Cohen is living in Montreal under the name of Cohen.

Subsequently, Leonard Cohen published less, with major gaps, concentrating more on recording songs.

In 1993 Leonard Cohen published Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, and in 2006, after 10 years of delays, additions, and rewritings, Book of Longing.

Also, during the late 1990s and 2000s, many of Cohen's new poems and lyrics were first published on the fan website The Leonard Cohen Files, including the original version of the poem "A Thousand Kisses Deep".

In 2011, Leonard Cohen was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for literature.

Leonard Cohen's books have been translated into multiple languages, including Spanish.

Warhol speculated that Leonard Cohen had spent time listening to Nico in clubs and that this had influenced his musical style.

People think Leonard Cohen is dark, but actually his sense of humour and his edge on the world is extremely light.

Leonard Cohen first introduced him to television audiences during one of her shows in 1966, where they performed duets of his songs.

Leonard Cohen stated that he was duped into giving up the rights for the song, but was glad it happened, as it would be wrong to write a song that was so well loved and to get rich for it.

Collins told Bill Moyers, during a television interview, that she felt Leonard Cohen's Jewish background was an important influence on his words and music.

Leonard Cohen appeared on BBC TV in 1968 where he sang a duet from the album with Julie Felix.

Leonard Cohen followed up that first album with Songs from a Room and Songs of Love and Hate.

In 1970, Leonard Cohen toured for the first time, in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival.

Leonard Cohen then heard the audience clamouring for his reappearance by singing to him in Hebrew, and under the influence of the psychedelic, he returned to finish the show.

One year later, in 1978, Leonard Cohen published a volume of poetry with the subtly revised title, Death of a Lady's Man.

Leonard Cohen acknowledges that the whole act of living contains immense amounts of sorrow and hopelessness and despair; and passion, high hopes, deep love, and eternal love.

In 1979, Leonard Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz and East Asian and Mediterranean influences.

The band helped Leonard Cohen create a new sound by featuring instruments like the oud, the Gypsy violin, and the mandolin.

Leonard Cohen said that she sang backup for his 1980 tour, even though her career at the time was in much better shape than his.

Leonard Cohen supported the release of the album with his biggest tour to date, in Europe and Australia, and with his first tour in Canada and the United States since 1975.

Leonard Cohen supported the record with a series of television interviews and an extensive tour of Europe, Canada, and the US.

Many shows were broadcast on European and US television and radio stations, while Leonard Cohen performed for the first time in his career on PBS's Austin City Limits show.

Janet Maslin's New York Times book review said that Leonard Cohen spent years struggling with the song, which eventually became "one of the most haunting, mutable and oft-performed songs in American musical history".

Leonard Cohen first introduced the song during his world tour in 1988.

In 1992, Leonard Cohen released The Future, which urges perseverance, reformation, and hope in the face of grim prospects.

Leonard Cohen promoted the album with two music videos, for "Closing Time" and "The Future", and supported the release with the major tour through Europe, United States and Canada, with the same band as in his 1988 tour, including a second appearance on PBS's Austin City Limits.

In 1993, Leonard Cohen published his book of selected poems and songs, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, on which he had worked since 1989.

In 1996, Leonard Cohen was ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and took the Dharma name Jikan, meaning "silence".

Leonard Cohen served as personal assistant to Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi.

Leonard Cohen began to contribute regularly to The Leonard Cohen Files fan website, emailing new poems and drawings from Book of Longing and early versions of new songs, like "A Thousand Kisses Deep" in September 1998 and Anjani Thomas's story sent on May 6,1999, the day they were recording "Villanelle for our Time".

In October 2004, Leonard Cohen released Dear Heather, largely a musical collaboration with jazz chanteuse Anjani Thomas, although Sharon Robinson returned to collaborate on three tracks.

Blue Alert, an album of songs co-written by Anjani and Leonard Cohen, was released in 2006 to positive reviews.

Leonard Cohen was sued in turn by other former business associates.

Leonard Cohen published a book of poetry and drawings, Book of Longing, in May 2006.

In Dublin, Leonard Cohen was the first performer to play an open-air concert at IMMA ground, performing there on June 13,14 and 15,2008.

In September, October and November 2008, Leonard Cohen toured Europe, including stops in Austria, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Italy, Germany, France and Scandinavia.

In March 2009, Leonard Cohen released Live in London, recorded in July 2008 at London's O2 Arena and released on DVD and as a two-CD set.

On February 19,2009, Leonard Cohen played his first American concert in 15 years at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

In July 2009, Leonard Cohen started his marathon European tour, his third in two years.

On September 18,2009, on the stage at a concert in Valencia, Spain, Leonard Cohen suddenly fainted halfway through performing his song "Bird on the Wire", the fourth in the two-act set list; Leonard Cohen was brought down backstage by his band members and then admitted to local hospital, while the concert was suspended.

The collection included a selection from all Leonard Cohen's books, based on his 1993 books of selected works, Stranger Music, and as well from Book of Longing, with addition of six new song lyrics.

Leonard Cohen returned to North America in the spring of 2013 with concerts in the United States and Canada.

Leonard Cohen then toured Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2013.

Leonard Cohen released his 13th album, Popular Problems, on September 24,2014.

Leonard Cohen particularly uses chord progressions that are classical in shape.

Leonard Cohen is a much more savvy musician than you'd think.

Leonard Cohen would later remark, 'Lover, Lover, Lover' was born over there; the whole world has its eyes riveted on this tragic and complex conflict.

Leonard Cohen is mentioned in the Nirvana song "Pennyroyal Tea" from the band's 1993 release, In Utero.

Long before his death, Leonard Cohen said "I feel I have a huge posthumous career in front of me".

In September 1960, Leonard Cohen bought a house on the Greek island of Hydra with $1,500 that he had inherited from his grandmother.

Leonard Cohen lived there with Marianne Ihlen, with whom he was in a relationship for most of the 1960s.

Leonard Cohen took the cover photograph for Live Songs and is pictured on the cover of the Death of a Ladies' Man.

Leonard Cohen inspired the "Dark Lady" of Cohen's book Death of a Lady's Man, but is not the subject of one of his best-known songs, "Suzanne", which refers to Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of a friend, the Quebecois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt.

Leonard Cohen had three grandchildren: grandson Cassius through his son Adam, and granddaughter Viva and grandson Lyon through Lorca.

Leonard Cohen was in a relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann in the 1980s.

Leonard Cohen had a brief phase around 1970 of being interested in a variety of world views, which he later described as "from the Communist party to the Republican Party" and "from Scientology to delusions of me as the High Priest rebuilding the Temple".

Leonard Cohen showed an interest in the teachings of Ramesh Balsekar, who taught from the tradition of Advaita Vedanta.

At his concert in Ramat Gan on September 24,2009, Leonard Cohen spoke Jewish prayers and blessings to the audience in Hebrew.

Leonard Cohen opened the show with the first sentence of Ma Tovu.

Leonard Cohen died on November 7,2016, at the age of 82 at his home in Los Angeles; leukemia was a contributing cause.

Leonard Cohen was survived by his two children and three grandchildren.