Leonard Cohen & Me, photo by Henry Diltz

This is a photograph of me with the

great Leonard Cohen, taken out on the

porch of his L.A. home, his "tower of song," as he

referred to it in a song, taken by

the great Mr. Henry Diltz.

 

This is a good example of the kind of

wonderful photos Henry takes, and why

I have been honored to work with him. To see

my portrait of he who I've learned so much from,

see www.flickr.com/photos/zollo/149333034/

 

I was in the happy company of Leonard on this

day to interview him for SongTalk magazine, an

interview it took me many years to land. It's preserved

in my big book of songwriter interviews called

"Songwriters On Songwriting, Expanded Edition"

[Da Capo Press], which also has my interviews with

Dylan, Simon, Randy Newman and about 60 others.

 

Leonard is not only one of the world's greatest

songwriters and a gifted poet and novelist,

he's also one of the wisest and also funniest men

I've ever met. Every question that I asked was

answered with a wonderful parable of sorts,

a response abundant with poetry, humor,

celebration, resignation

and genuine wisdom.

 

When I asked him, as I did everyone in my book,

how he got in touch with the source that produced

such great songs, he said, "If I knew where the great

songs came from, I'd go there more often. It's much

like the life of a Catholic nun.

You're married to a mystery."

 

(Noah Stone, a fine songwriter and a flickr friend,

wrote a very good song inspired by this line, which is

called "Married to a Mystery.")

 

Leonard said, "Most musicians, you know, have

chops. I only have one chop. But it's a good chop."

 

He spoke a lot about the great amount of time

and labor it takes to write a good song, to "break

the code," of the song. He'll write 40 verses for

one song, and then discard many of them. I asked

him if when he was working to break that code,

if he was thinking about what a song should say.

 

"Anything that I can bring to it," he said. "Thought,

meditation, drinking, disillusion, insomnia,

vacations... Because once the song enters the

mill, it's worked on by everything that I can summon.

And I need everything. I try everything. I try to ignore it,

try to repress it,

try to get high, try to get intoxicated,

try to get sober,

all the versions of myself that I can summon

are summoned

to participate in this project, this work force.

I try everything. I'll do anything. By any means

possible."

 

I asked if any of these methods worked better than

others.

 

"Nothing works," he said. "Nothing works. After a

while, if you stick with a song long enough, it will

yield. But long enough is way beyond any

reasonable estimation of what you think long

enough may be.

Because if you think it's a week,

that's not long enough.

If you think it's a year, that's not long enough.

If you think it's a decade, that's not long enough."

Done