"Lenny-Mania?"

On the weekend a Radio 2 listener/blog reader wrote in about the Jeff Buckley cover of the Leonard Cohen song, Hallelujah. It's not a very long limb to go out on to say it's one of the best -- a wrenchingly beautiful version of a wrenchingly beautiful song.

In fact recently the BBC aired a documentary about the song itself, called The Fourth, The Fifth, The Minor Fall, frustratingly not available online. But what is available, is the December 2008 cover story in Mojo magazine, called The Incredible Resurrection Of Rock's Greatest Poet by journalist Sylvie Simmons, which "looks back over a life brimming with music, women, Zen and the devil with the man they once called Captain Mandrax."
And it's accompanied by a 15-track Cohen Covers CD, featuring Allison Crowe, Judy Collins, Dion, Linda Thompson, Katie Melua, Nick Cave, among others. Due to some poor consumer habits I've not yet procured magazine and disc, but have every intention of doing so before it's off the stands.

Naturally such a Cohen focus has led to some interesting online activity. For example, 1HeckofaGuy's suggested Mojo cover -- Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Santa.

But back to Cohen himself. As is frequently the case these days Cohen is in the news, ever since his return to the road. (I was fortunate enough to hear one quite wonderful concert during that tour).

On Friday the Telegrah published a review called Leonard Cohen At The 02: Lenny-Mania In London (Aside: 1HeckOfAGuy thoroughly analyzes that designation here.)

This excerpt points out something that some fans might concur with:"In his fedora Cohen looked to be the epitome of a decadent, elegant roué, and only when he occasionally doffed it to one of his musicians or to acknowledge the audience's thunderous applause did we get a glimpse of the frail septuagenarian beneath. It is an irony that the collapse of Cohen's pension fund has given us the opportunity of seeing the greatest contemporary songwriter apart from Bob Dylan perform at this point in his life, but it is a delicious irony that makes it all the more enjoyable."

I don't know about it being a "delicious irony," but there was no feeling sorry for Cohen in the performance I saw, whatever his motivations for returning to the public eye, as they say. (As though it is one, giant, cyclops like perspective, and who knows, maybe it feels like that from the performer's p.o.v.) He seemed to totally and lovingly embrace performance, and the audience's response.

But back to Cohen news. Also on Friday, the Globe ran a story that there will be a "rare showing" of Cohen's drawings in Vancouver in December -- so for those of you in the neighbourhood, mark your calendars. (It will run at the Linda Lando Fine Art Gallery from December 5-20.)

And meantime, if you didn't click on that link to hear Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah, here's your second chance!