'Lili Marlene', the unlikely anthem of the Second World War, cut across front lines and ideological divides. This love song began as a poem written by a German soldier during the First World War. The words were set to music in Berlin in the 1930s by one of Hitler's favoured composers. The song's sin[...]
At seventy-eight, decades after his contemporaries have either died or turned into nostalgia acts, Leonard Cohen is as popular as he's ever been, with a chart-topping new album and songs like "Hallelujah" gracing blockbuster movie soundtracks. To understand the reasons behind Cohen's unlikely career[...]
Why is it that Leonard Cohen receives the sort of reverence we reserve for a precious few living artists? Why are his songs, three or four decades after their original release, suddenly gracing the charts, blockbuster movie sound tracks, and television singing competitions? And why is it that while [...]
In this philosophical biography, Liel Leibovitz looks at what it is that makes musician/philosopher/poet Leonard Cohen an enduring international figure in the cultural imagination. Born into a Canadian religious Jewish family, for years a reclusive lyricist on the Greek island of Hydra, known for hi[...]