Investigations Of Leonard Cohen’s Early Influences
For decades, scholars, critics, and fans have searched in vain for the definitive influences on Leonard Cohen’s artistry.
The style and quality of Cohen’s novels, poetry, and music have been variously attributed to Yeats, country music, Judaism, Montreal’s geographic and social settings, ritualistic Catholicism, parental nurturing, illicit drugs, Irving Layton, local mores, women with whom he has coupled, women who have rejected him, the creative community on Hydra, and scores of other writers, sociological factors, and interpersonal forces.
Despite the effort expended, however, the conclusions derived from these explorations have been, at best, generic in scope and, too often, unconvincing.
In retrospect, it is apparent that all examples of this sort of research have shared a common flaw: each of these explorations of Cohen’s fundamental influences has focused exclusively on one category of his work, what we have come to call “the important stuff.”
Heck Of A Guy investigations, however, have eluded this seemingly unavoidable, pervasive fault, remaining pristinely uncontaminated by matters smacking of or even approximating significance.
Skipping Study Leads To Breakthrough
Rather than taking the easy way out by examining, for example, metric and rhyme patterns, transformative shifts in content and prose conventions, or the complex interactions resulting from Leonard Cohen’s friendships and romances, the Heck Of A Guy Research Department approached Cohen’s primary influences by extending its seminal work on On-stage Skipping Behaviors Displayed By 75 Year Old Iconic Canadian Singer-Songwriters (see What Makes Leonard Cohen Run?) and its follow-up (see Run Leonard Run – How Leonard Cohen Does It).
The break came during the systematic examination of parallel skipping performances by other performers.
Check out what we found:
To highlight the congruency between the rather elaborate skipping Leonard Cohen has routinely undertaken to leave the stage during the World Tour concerts and the similar choreography implemented by his show business ancestor, the first video shows three of Mr Cohen’s skipping exits set to the music used by his predecessor:
The Back To The Future Version Of The Wizard Of Oz
Even more convincing is a long lost video Heck Of A Guy operatives unearthed from the MGM archives1 which appears to be a projected sequel to The Wizard Of Oz featuring – well, you have to see it for yourselves. Happily, our agents were able to copy and smuggle out this fragment (keep an eye on the Scarecrow at the beginning of the video – the straw dude is really into it):
Leonard Cohen’s Career Path – Following The Yellow Brick Road
It is intuitively apparent that the impact the Wizard of Oz has had on Cohen’s artistic development reaches far beyond the skipping.
For example, the anticipated use of Cohen’s “The Future” in a sequel to what was, after all, a children’s movie, neatly resolves the perplexing mystery of the early alteration of the song’s lyrics from “anal sex” to “careless sex.”2
But the Oz-Cohen connection turns out to be an especially powerful lens through which to view Cohen’s work in general – which is the topic of a post in – yep, you guessed it – the future.
Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
From “The Future” by Leonard Cohen
_____________________- MGM, which produced Wizard of Oz was purchased by Sony. Guess which talented and iconic Canadian poet, singer-songwriter is under contract to Sony? Happenstance? I think not. [↩]
- See What Has Happened To Anal Sex In The Future? [↩]
Leanard Cohen Skips Offstage « Camel's Nose // Dec 4, 2009 at 2:08 am
[...] rather cheeky Cohen fan has declared that the prototype for Cohen’s skipping is to be found in The Wizard of Oz. Not [...]