He Never Was a Stranger
Leonard in the 1960s
Leonard in the 1960s
The Beat, March 9, 1968 (advertisement)
"I don't even think of myself as a writer, singer or whatever. The occupation of being a man is so much more."
-- The Beat, March 9, 1968
"It's just that special magic that makes a song move from lip to lip. You know, you can never tell what energy you bestow on something. You may feel that you aren't giving enough to it, but you may be giving exactly what is necessary. Those songs are moving through people in some way, very, very slowly." -- Duel, Winter 1969 |
 Playboy, November 1968 |
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 Photographs by Charmian Reading Saturday Night, June 1969 |
| "When I was in Edmonton, about a year and a half ago, I was greeted at the
airport by two young girls who were wearing mini-skirts, and they said to
me that they had introduced the mini-skirt to Edmonton. And they took
very, very good care of me. And I wrote this song for them. It's called the
'Sisters Of Mercy.'" -- BBC Sessions, 1968, from Diamonds in the Lines: Leonard Cohen in his own live words |
 Photograph by Michael A. Vaccaro Look magazine, June 10, 1969 |
 "I suppose I always wanted to be a pop singer... I remember reading in an anthology of Chinese poetry many years ago they were discussing the biographies of the various Chinese poets and one of the poets was an intellectual poet and the other poet, I loved his work, his songs were sung by the women washing their clothes. I thought that's the kind I want to be..." -- Duel, Winter 1969 |
 Photograph by Don Newlands Chatelaine, September, 1969 |