Leonard Cohen preparing for 2008 Tour1
I’m Your (Sharp-dressed) Man
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.
-From Sharp-dressed Man by ZZ Top
This shot of Leonard Cohen rehearsing for his upcoming World Tour in his Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes2 is intriguing and even a tad mysterious.
How, for example, does he look so good in that hat? Why does he look like an illustration for the dictionary definition of “dapper” wearing a double breasted jacket while 97% of the men that don them (including Dave Letterman, who wears one almost every night on his show) resemble nothing else as much as a corpse being fitted for a shroud? Why is he fingering a keyboard when he typically plays a guitar, if he plays any instrument, in his concerts? Why does he have only one hand on the keyboard? Is the one hand in the pocket stance essential as a component of the not quite insouciant slouch?
And what the heck is with that gong in the background?
Footnotes
- Photo by Lorca Cohen. Used by permission of Leonard Cohen via Ed Sanders. Thanks to Dick Straub for alerting me to the photo, which originally appeared on LeonardCohenFiles.com and LeonardCohenForum.com↩
- Or would these be Leonard Cohen’s “Sabbath-go-to-meeting Clothes?” Or his “Sabbath-go-to-synagogue Clothes?” Such are the perils of the culturally sensitive blogger.↩
