Leonard Cohen Admires Berry’s “Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news”
One other tidbit appeared in Leonard Cohen shows there’s life in the old dog yet with launch of new album by Alex Needham (The Guardian, 18 January 2012), the report on Jarvis Cocker’s Jan 18, 2012 interview with Leonard Cohen:
The Pulp frontman [Jarvis Cocker] finished by asking how Cohen felt about being awarded the PEN New England award for literary excellence in song lyrics.
“The thing I liked about this award was that I’m sharing it with Chuck Berry,” said Cohen. “‘Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news’ – I’d like to write a line like that.”
Ongoing readers may recall that the 17 January 2012 Heck Of A Guy post, Leonard Cohen & Chuck Berry Honored With First Annual Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award, noted that the only internet source identifying the winners of this award discoverable in repeated searches
is a press release, “New Leonard Cohen Song to Be Streamed by The New Yorker,” which Heck Of A Guy (and several other Cohen-affiliated sites) received from AJGpr, a Los Angeles based public relations firm working with the Old Ideas album marketing campaign.
And, that has not changed. This morning, no sites, including the PEN New England site, carried this news except as part of the Old Ideas-New Yorker press release.
It is possible – and in fact seems likely – that Mr Cocker obtained his information from the same source.
Still, it’s comforting to find out that, even if not everybody knows, at least Leonard Cohen knows he won the award.
Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox Preview
This song will indeed be featured on a future Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox post, but there’s no reason not to enjoy it now.
