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Today’s Quotation is care of Leonard Cohen.
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Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter whose spare songs carried an existential bite and established him as one of the most distinctive voices of 1970s pop music. Already established as a poet and novelist (his first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956), Cohen became interested in the Greenwich Village folk scene while living in New York City during the mid-1960s, and he began setting his poems to music. In 1967 Judy Collins recorded two of his songs, “Suzanne” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag,” and that same year Cohen began performing in public, including an appearance at the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival. By the end of the year, he had recorded The Songs of Leonard Cohen, which included the melancholy “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.” That album was followed by Songs from a Room (1969), featuring the now often-covered “Bird on a Wire,” and Songs of Love and Hate (1971).

Though some did not care for Cohen’s baritone voice and deadpan delivery, he mostly enjoyed critical and commercial success. Leonard Cohen: Live Songs (1973) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974) further deepened Cohen’s standing as a songwriter of exceptional emotional power. His career then took a decided turn for the worse with the disappointing Death of a Ladies’ Man (1977), a collaboration with legendary producer Phil Spector, whose grandiose style was ill suited to Cohen’s understated songs. For most of the 1980s Cohen was out of favour, but his 1988 album, I’m Your Man, included the club hits “First We Take Manhattan” and “Everybody Knows” and introduced his songwriting to a new generation. In addition, Various Positions (1984) included what became Cohen’s best-known song, “Hallelujah.” Although it did not initially receive much attention, the single gained widespread popularity when covered by Jeff Buckley in 1994. The ballad was later performed or recorded by hundreds of artists and featured in soundtracks of TV shows and films.

After releasing The Future (1992), he retired to a Buddhist monastery outside Los Angeles. He emerged in 1999 and returned to the studio, producing Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004). Released just weeks before his death, Cohen’s 14th studio album, You Want It Darker (2016), was received by critics as a late-period masterpiece. For the title track, he posthumously received a Grammy Award for best rock performance. In 2008 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2010 he was honored with a Grammy for lifetime achievement.

From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Cohen.

For more information about Leonard Cohen:

Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:

Salman Rushdie about Cohen, at 35:17: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-168-salman-rushdie

Pico Iyer about Cohen, at 18:18: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-004-pico-iyer

“Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/leonard-cohen-makes-it-darker

“Leonard Cohen”: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/leonard-cohen