Tea and oranges all the way from China

ANOTHER GREAT LOSS - FAREWELL LEONARD COHEN

The tea and oranges that come all the way from China is the only food reference I can think of in relation to Leonard Cohen, who died yesterday aged 82. He had just recently completed a new album which he thought was his best yet, and was apparently working until the end. So there will be no more masterpieces from this greatest of all modern singers, poets and authors. But we do have what he produced in his lifetime - and what a legacy. Just about every song is a small miracle I think. Indeed I cannot really think of any that I did not like. It was he who should have got the Nobel prize, not Bob Dylan. He was more consistent and a better performer too. But many others will have said it all so much better than I.

I first heard Leonard Cohen singing back in the 60s - I think it might have been my sister who introduced him to me and I was instantly hooked. The words and the singular voice - not quite singing, almost speaking but so melodic and so right. I collected every record when it came out - there were fairly lengthy intervals in between them, although I have neglected to collect his later ones. They took a long time to produce because he worked so long and so hard on the words. David's favourite song is Alexandra Leaving and because he was so entranced by the words he googled them and found a long and detailed history of how he had come to write it, the poem it is based on and the changes that he made to the original. It was a fascinating look at his process.

And although we all talk about the poetry of his words and the sentiments they convey, we should not forget the music itself for the tunes too are beautiful and match the words to perfection. The songs are holistic works. You cannot have one without the other. Well I suppose you can, but the words on their own and the music on its own is not as perfect as the two together. And yes, others have covered his songs - often to great effect - but never as well as Cohen himself.

My own favourite is Joan of Arc I think. A song that is not all that well known. The metaphor of Joan as a bride and the fire as the groom is so consistently beautiful throughout and the refrain from the ever-present female singers so simple yet so apt. Indeed his back-up singers and band are always so crucial to his work, and he always gives them their full due. He has worked with some of the greatest. We have been to two of his concerts here in Australia in recent years. Both of them in the open air and both mesmerisingly wonderful. Yes he was a long way away from us - a mere dot almost - but there was a big screen and of course you could hear him. And he sounds just as he is on his records. The rapport with the audience was tangible, and although an old man by then - in his seventies - he was spry and sang for a very long time. They were two of the most memorable concerts I have ever attended. Very unlike Bob Dylan - who didn't disappoint from a musical point of view, but had very little time for his audience. It was a job for him, not a pleasure, which is what Leonard Cohen made it seem.

The other thing I would like to comment on with respect to his music is the wonderful use that was made of it by the late Robert Altman - another huge loss to creativity in the 20th century - in two of his films, McCabe and Mrs Miller and The Wedding. The music was not written for the films. It existed already - but it was perfect and added a whole other dimension to what was going on on the screen.

A few of my favourite lines:

“There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”

"And deep into his fiery heart He took the dust of Joan of Arc And high above the wedding guests He hung the ashes of her wedding dress"

"All the women tear their blouses off And the men they dance on the polka-dots And it's partner found, it's partner lost And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops: It's closing time"

"They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem. If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem."

"Even though she sleeps upon your satin; Even though she wakes you with a kiss. Do not say the moment was imagined; Do not stoop to strategies like this."

"A thousand kisses deep"

They are endless really. But whilst he is gone his songs and his poetry remain. He will be remembered.

And to be a tiny bit flippant - orange pekoe tea. Those words from his song about Susanna, one of his early loves, evoke orange pekoe tea to me. Such a romantic sounding name - and so Chinese sounding - for the tea and oranges 'come all the way from China." And yet, it turns out, orange pekoe tea, though possibly originating in China, is now more or less unknown there and comes from Sri Lanka and India. You learn something every day.