Leonard Cohen

So I scanned though my Tivo'd copy of the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies last night. Thank goodness for the fast forward button! I have watched many of these induction ceremonies, and every year I am struck by how dull and non-Rock and Roll they are. The Grammy awards seem like a drug-fueled orgy compared to these. It didn't help that this year's inductees were kind of bland anyway (The Ventures, The Dave Clark Five, John Cougar Melencamp, Leonard Cohen, Madonna). The big draw obviously was Madonna who I have long been a huge fan of. However, she didn't perform which meant we had to listen to her talk for 30 minutes. Iggy & The Stooges played two of her songs instead which sounds cool, but it sure wasn't. These days Iggy looks like he needs a walker and as cool as he sounds doing his own stuff, he should never attempt to sing Madonna. I'm all for punk, but it has to sound good to the ears on some level.

The point of this post is to mention 2008 nominee Leonard Cohen. Cohen has long been on my "artists I need to check out" list. The only material I really knew by him is the song "Hallelujah". If that was the only song the guy ever wrote, he would be a legend. I think everyone but me has covered it and Damien Rice did a great job with it at the ceremonies.


After a shaky Lou Reed introduction, Leonard Cohen got up and gave one of the best speeches I have ever seen. The guy is one cool motherfucker, that's for sure. The speech is mostly Cohen reciting the lyrics to his song "Tower of Song". It was enough to get me to want to hear every lyric this guy has written. See it for yourself and congratulations Leonard. I'm sure you deserve the honer, whether anyone knows it or not...