Who Knew?
Apparently, Everybody Knows
When the universe (or statistically inevitable coincidence) presents one with a cosmic joke, however hackneyed, obvious, or egregiously jejune, it seems only prudent to pause, listen attentively, and chortle with sufficient enthusiasm to deflect accusations of a merely polite response but stopping short of the over the top exuberance that smacks of insincerity in acknowledgment of the universe’s graciousness in sharing that nugget of jocularity.
So, get ready to yuck it up.
Everybody Knows, a Leonard Cohen song1 delivered in his
famously deep, raspy voice, the final result, according to Cohen himself, of “about 500 tons of whiskey and millions of cigarettes,” has been chosen as the music for a major anti-smoking ad.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales (NSW) residents tuning in to Sunday’s Beijing Olympics broadcast …
The casting is also notable because Leonard Cohen’s music is rarely used in commercials or public service announcements. I do not have access to an exhaustive list, but I would be surprised if, in Cohen’s 40 year career, the number of different ads using his work goes into double figures.2
About That Anti-smoking Campaign
As this excerpt from the same article indicates, the NSW anti-smoking campaign is not one of those wishy-washy, emphasize the sunny side of life sort of programs. Nope, it’s more along the lines of, say, Scared Straight, it’s more big stick than carrot, it’s less about Santa bringing gifts for good little boys and girls than about the boogyman whisking away naughty children to obliquely defined but unmistakably horrid torments.
An example of this style can be seen in the video below, which is produced by the same Australian Quit Program that will sponsor the stop-smoking ad broadcast tonight. It is by no means the most aggressive anti-smoking ad in this series (it is more somber than shocking, at least comparatively), but it may not be how more sensitive viewers want to start their Sunday.
Leonard Cohen - I’m Your (Marlboro) Man
Congruently, Leonard Cohen’s smoking was more than an incidental phenomenon. Consider these excerpts from interviews and articles.
In 1973, Alastair Pirrie described in Cohen Regrets3 Cohen’s behavior,
Similarly, in I never discuss my mistresses or my tailors, Nick Paton Walsh describes Cohen’s behavior during the 2001 interview in relation to his stay at a Zen monastery.
A July 20, 2008 Sunday Times Profile, describes the tobacco enhanced voice:
The Leonard Cohen No-Step Stop Smoking Program
Cigarettes, once an obligatory accoutrement for Cohen, have apparently been vanquished. In a June 12, 2008 interview, Cohen discusses his drinking and smoking patterns on earlier tours and how he stopped smoking:
A: This way, without drinking and smoking, it’s a very, very different situation. Anyone who’s been a heavy drinker and heavy smoker and has the good future to survive that and give it up knows what a very different kind of daily existence one has. I was smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day. And I was drinking heavily on these tours.
Q: How did you stop drinking? Did you go into a program?
A: I lost my taste for it. Just like cigarettes. I lost my taste.
“I lost my taste for it.” Dramatic, eh?4
Losing his taste for excessive alcohol and tobacco does not, however, appear to have turned Leonard Cohen into an evangelist for the eradication of these societal demons. The following is an excerpt from “The Cigarette Issue” in The Book of Longing, published in 2006:
is the promise, the beauty
and the salvation
of cigarettes
the little Parthenon
of an unopened pack of cigarettes
and Mumbai, like the Athens
of forty years ago
is a city to smoke in
And from the same volume of poetry comes the poem, “What Did It:”
that the great sage
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Once offered him a cigarette,
“Thank you, sir, but I don’t smoke.”
“Don’t smoke?” said the master,
“What’s life for?”
Dance Me Go The End Of This Post
And In Conclusion
Depending on ones perspective on hermeneutics, the life, characteristics, and vision of the artist who has created a work may or may not have significance. Most of us, I suspect, operate as semi-deconstructionalists, albeit out of convenience more than conviction, so the implications of the music for a vehemently anti-smoking ad being provided by an artist known for his smoking through most of his career are trivial, a how-about-that sort of item.
Of course, if this anti-smoking gig is successful, it would open the door for other reverse-field jobs in advertising - I’m thinking
Leonard Cohen: spokesman for the wedding industry
Footnotes
_____________________- Authorship of Everybody Knows, first released in 1988 on Cohen’s I’m Your Man album, is co-credited to Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson↩
- At the moment, I recall the recent Old Navy ad featuring Blue Alert and a British Heart Foundation ad using Waiting For The Miracle in the 1990s. I have read about Suzanne being used to sell bikes somewhere in Europe. I am less sure but think I have also, read about a Cohen song being used to peddle shoes and a cover being used in supermarket ads in England or Europe. In any case, a Leonard Cohen song in a broadcast ad is an unusual event.↩
- New Musical Express, March 10, 1973↩
- OK, “Waiting For The Miracle - Leonard Cohen’s Battle With The Demons Of Alcohol and Tobacco” isn’t likely to become a best-selling inspirational autobiography - or a Lifetime movie of the week - or a quickie on E!, but based on my experiences working with those trying to stop drinking or smoking, I believe the seldom articulated addiction treatment methodology of “lose your taste for it” would prove attractive to many clients. Leonard, how does the “Cohen Clinic Program To Stop Smoking - Eventually” sound? Have your people call my people. I smell franchise opportunity.↩
