Abstract
Leonard Cohen has two audiences. You may be a member of one or the other, or perhaps both. But if you have an interest in Canadian letters or in popular music, you'll find it hard to ignore Cohen's work. Members of the first audience remember the remarkable literary persona of the 1960s: the author whose two novels were to sell a million copies each and the poet who was named the winner of the Governor General's Award (although he declined to accept the honour).
Members of the second audience know Cohen through the songs he has recorded over a period of more than 20 years. This audience is the larger one, and it is the one that has seemed to propel Cohen's career as a public figure. From the first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, to Famous Blue Raincoat (recorded by Jennifer Warnes in 1987), Cohen is most widely known as an icon of popular culture. He admitted as much in a 1988 interview in Musician magazine: "Now I know what I am: I'm not a novelist. I'm not the light of my generation. I'm not the spokesman for new sensibility. I'm a songwriter living in L.A., and this is my new record."
Marco Adria, spoke by phone with Leonard Cohen in July, 1990 at the songwriter's home in Montreal.