When asked whether having two grandchildren made him think about his artistic legacy, Cohen said: "I cannot associate those little creatures with any larger idea such as a legacy. However, Cohen said: "When I finished the tour I didn't feel like stopping, so I wrote the record." He added that a further record and tour were likely. The singer sued his former manager for stealing £2.8m from his retirement fund while he was on a five-year retreat in a Zen Buddhist monastery. The tour had been prompted by Cohen's precarious financial situation. Being back on the road really re-established me as being a worker in the world and that was a very satisfactory feeling."
#The dogg food album movie#
He remembered he'd had a good role – he's played the president in a movie and I felt somewhat that I had been a singer. I was like Ronald Reagan in his declining years. The singer said he had been "invigorated and illuminated" by his last tour, which took in 247 shows over two years to huge audiences and ecstatic reviews.īefore he'd started the tour, Cohen said, "I hadn't done anything for 15 years. Once questions were opened to the floor, Cohen revealed that he is likely to tour after the album's release, despite fainting on stage after a bout of food poisoning in Spain two years ago. "'Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news' – I'd like to write a line like that." "The thing I liked about this award was that I'm sharing it with Chuck Berry," said Cohen. The Pulp frontman finished by asking how Cohen felt about being awarded the PEN New England award for literary excellence in song lyrics.
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#The dogg food album full#
"The sea would be full of art dealers plunging in to rescue it," he concluded.Ĭocker responded by asking Cohen if he realised 'banjo' was Sheffield slang for a sandwich, since the person eating it brushed crumbs off their jumper with a strumming gesture. "If it was a Stradivarius that wouldn't be so interesting." "It's hilarious," Cohen deadpanned, after a pregnant pause. "The banjo can be a funny instrument," he said. "Is the penitence appropriate to God or to man? Who's to blame in this catastrophe? I never figured that out."Ĭocker also asked about the song Banjo, which uses the image of an instrument floating in the sea. "I'm not sure what that means, to be honest," responded Cohen, to guffaws from the audience. "In another song, Come Healing, there's a line 'the penitential hymn' and it struck me that that could work as a label for a lot of your songs," Cocker persisted. "You know, I don't have that many ideas," jousted Cohen. He said that songwriting involved "perseverance, perspiration, but also a certain kind of grace and illumination."Ĭocker asked that as Cohen's publishing company was called Old Ideas, was it something he'd always wanted to call an album? He persistently rebuffed Cocker's attempts to decode his songwriting, warning him: "We've got to be careful analysing these sacred mechanics because somebody will throw a monkey wrench into the thing and neither of us will ever write a line again." I felt I was operating in more like what Yeats used to say was the 'foul rag and bone shop of the heart'." I never had the sense that I was standing in front of a buffet table with a multitude of choices. "I always felt I was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get the song together. "You know, you just work with what you got," said Cohen, after a pause. Now it doesn't really matter one way or the other."Ĭocker said that he had always been impressed with the "intimacy" of Cohen's work. The 77-year-old said that being a songwriter used to be popular with the opposite sex: "It was agreeable to have some kind of a reputation or some kind of list of credentials so you didn't have to start from scratch with every woman you walked into. The inside cover features a drawing, by Cohen, of a naked woman and a skull. Old Ideas proves that Cohen's long-term preoccupations with sex, death and salvation have endured. "I thought it would destroy my whole position and my voice would rise to a soprano." He joked that his aim is to take up smoking again at 80, so if he continues to tour, "I can smoke on the road". "It's what happens when you give up cigarettes, contrary to public opinion," he told Cocker. "Do you think there's a bottom it can get to or can it go all the way?" "We have to mention the voice – its seems to have got even deeper," said Cocker. This particular record invites one to be swept along with it even if you happen to have written it yourself."Ĭohen's tones have become even more sepulchral with age. But mostly I was wondering if I myself could be swept along with it. He went on to say that he did keep an ear out to see whether he had "ratcheted it up to the right degree of excellence.