Leonard Cohen

Prince of Asturias Awards Letters 2011

Leonard Norman Cohen, CC (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian poet, novelist, and singer-songwriter. His musical career has largely overshadowed his prior work as a poet and novelist, although he has continued to publish poetry sporadically after his breakthrough in the music industry.

Musically, Cohen's early songs are based in folk music, both for melodies and instrumentation, but, beginning in the 1970s, his work shows the influence of various types of popular music and cabaret music. Since the 1980s he typically sings in a deep bass register, with synthesizers and female backing vocals.

Cohen's songs are often emotionally heavy and lyrically complex, owing more to the metaphoric word play of poetry than to the conventions of song craft. His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, and complex interpersonal relationships.

Cohen's music has become very influential on other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand cover versions of his work have been recorded. He is also popular in his native land, having been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and awarded the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor.

In 2008, he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was distinguished with the Grammy lifetime award in 2010. He was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize in 2011.

Transcript: Leonard Cohen at Oct 21, 2011 Prince of Asturias Awards Ceremony

From El Pais [Google English translation]:

It is an honor to be here tonight, but perhaps, as the great master Riccardo Muti, I’m not used to be before an audience without an orchestra behind. I will do my solo. I could not sleep last night, I spent a sleepless night wondering what I could say here today. After eating all the chocolate and peanuts from the minibar scribbled a few words but I doubt it takes to refer to them. Obviously, I’m very excited about the recognition of the foundation. But I have come tonight to express another kind of gratitude that I hope to have three or four minutes.

When I was packing up in Los Angeles I felt uneasy because I have always been some ambiguity about poetry. Comes from a place that no one controls, that no conquest. That is, if he knew where the songs would come more often. Accepting an award for an activity that does not really control it. Packing up to come, I took my guitar Conde, made in Spain 40 years ago or so. The out of the box and seemed made of helium, very light. I put it in the face and smelled it, is very well designed, the fragrance of living wood. We know that wood just never die and it smelled like cedar, so cool, like the first day, when I bought the guitar for 40 years. And a voice seemed to say: “You’re an old man and have not thanked you have not returned your gratitude to those who deserve it: soil, land, the people who gave you so much. For just as a man is not a ID card, a debt rating is not a country. You know of my strong association with Federico Garcia Lorca and I can say that while I was young and adolescent not only found a voice and when I read Lorca in a translation, I found a voice gave permission to discover my own voice, to find my self, a self that is not yet finished.

As I got older I knew that the instructions came with that voice. What were those instructions? Never regret. And if we want to express the loss we all attacks must be in the strict confines of the dignity and beauty. So you had a voice, but he had the instrument to express it. I had a song. And now I will tell briefly the story of how I got my song.

I was a guitarist indifferent. I only knew a few chords. I sat with my friends, drank and sang, but never saw myself as a musician or a singer. One day, in the early sixties, was visiting my mother. His home was near a park with a tennis court where we would watch them play basketball. It was a place I knew from my childhood. I wandered around and met a young woman playing a flamenco guitar. I loved it, was surrounded by some girls and I sat down to listen, captivated me, I wanted to play well, but I knew I would never make.

I approached him and we understood half French half English and we agreed some classes at my mother. He was a young Spanish. The next day came. He said, “Let me hear you play something.” I did and said he had no idea. He picked up the guitar, tuned it, I returned it and said, “does not sound bad. Now touch it again.”

Not change much. He grabbed me again and said, “I’ll teach you a few chords.” He played a rapid sequence of chords and then I explained where I had to put my fingers and said again: “Now playing”. But it was a disaster.

The next day began again with the six chords. Many flamenco songs based on them. On the third day it keeps getting better. I learned six chords. The next day the guitarist did not return at home. Stopped coming. Since I had the number of the boarding house where he was staying went looking to see what had happened. They told me that he had killed himself Spanish, who had killed himself. I did not know anything about him, what part of Spain was why he was in Montreal for what was at the tennis court, why he killed himself.

I felt a great sadness. We have never had this in public. The six chords, the sound pattern has been the basis of all my songs and my music and maybe now they can begin to understand the magnitude of appreciation I have for this country. All you have found favor in my work comes from this story I just told you. All my work is inspired by this land. So thank you for holding it because it is his, I only have allowed to put my signature at the end of the last page.