Leonard Cohen - The Mystical Roots of Genius by Harry Freedman

 

This was a random pickup from my last library visit and I grabbed it simply because I am a fan of the man, especially his early work. Freedman's concept is an unusual one, though. This is not a biography but a thesis on Cohen's lyrics in the context of religious allegories. Of course, Cohen was raised a Jew, but was very familiar with the Christian Bible and later became a Buddhist monk, so there is plenty of religious iconography to go around!

While I generally believe that each person should interpret lyrics in their own way - as, most often, the lyricist intends - and that an outsider forcing their interpretations on the words inevitably fails, I must say that Freedman certainly knows his religious texts and makes a good case for their basis for Cohen's words. This is especially true considering Cohen's religious background, upbringing and continued learnings.

Of course, for a songwriter as creative and expressive as Cohen, it would be unusual to simply quote or even reinterpret the earlier writings. He reinvents, re-contextualizes, combines and simply turns stories on their heads in order to fit into his lyrical scheme. Freedman seems to essentially follow Cohen's line of thinking, although I would never believe that anyone other than the songwriter would ever have the last say in a song'a meaning.

The book is interesting in that it jumps around Cohen's discography non-chronologically, so that there is no emphasis on one era or style of his. I myself am a huge fan of his first three albums and then lost interest (and, as much as I have tried, none of his other records comes close to those, excluding his first live album, of course), so my interest is kept as he moves from later works to these earlier songs. I do think that his explanations at times quotes too directly from the lyrics that he is attempting to explain, but I guess there are only so many ways to describe a line of poetry.

I suppose, in a way, that the concept was fairly obvious given Cohen's religious leanings and background, but there are plenty of insights here, even if the text can be a bit clinical all too often. So, an interesting theory'n'book, but as a read, not completely captivating. There are a couple of actual biographies on the man htat I've read and expounded on previously, and those are a bit more compelling, simply due to the fact that they aren't as scholastic. But, this is definitely worth reading for fans of the man's work.