Leonard Cohen Fills My Heart

I was 24 years old when I started to work for Sony Music, which is when Leonard Cohen registered in my mind forever. My first task at the Hungarian affiliate as an external staff member was to prepare the company’s first-ever printed local catalogue for retailers. I had to transport the Sony Music CD archive from the office in Ponty Street to our fourth-floor flat, where I typed down all the titles, catalog numbers, song titles, release dates, label information of each record into a huge word document. Then I transferred the discs to the graphic design studio on Attila Way, where they scanned all the covers and put together the printing materials from my word document and their images. When we processed all the 1245 CDs and 30 VHSs, they produced a proof I had to check if every information was correct. By the end of the process, I learned the whole Sony Music catalogue, including the first nine Cohen studio albums: Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971), New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974), Death of a Ladies’ Man (1977), Recent Songs (1979), Various Positions (1984), I’m Your Man (1988), The Future (1992).

The in-depth discovery of his music started in 1997 when I already was responsible for the local marketing of an upcoming Cohen release. I read all the available materials like his biography, the new release info sheet, press clippings we received from the US via regular mail. I checked the marketing plan we got via a Lotus Notes database, and entered the local marketing plan into the system, wrote the review into the monthly newsletter:
„This year Columbia Records celebrates the 30th anniversary of signing Leonard Cohen. What else can commemorate this extraordinary jubilee better than a comprehensive Best of compilation? Naturally More Best Of Leonard Cohen is not a simple selection of his greatest hits like Everybody Knows, First We Take Manhattan, I’m Your Man, Take This Waltz, Anthem, Dance Me To The End Of Love, etc., but contains some bonus materials as well. Here you can listen to two brand new Cohen songs: Never Any Goes and The Great Event.
This collection represents perfectly the carrier that is justified by 11 million album sales.”

This small piece on Mr. Cohen includes a fact that speaks volumes of unique human quality and rare life philosophy. From his first recordings, he had worked with Columbia on his recorded music projects for 30 years. And during the next 20 years as well! This dedication, calmness, consciousness, acceptance, mindfulness is a precious value for me. He trusts his label until the end of his life, does not expect miracles, is grateful for the work done for him. Artists like him makes my role as a tiny gear in a large machine to be a privilege.

In February 1998, I wrote a review on the Armelle Brusq documentary released on VHS:
„Right after the release of the great More Best Of album, Leonard Cohen gives us a video material titled Spring 96, which is a portrait about the Canadian singer. Many people do not know that Cohen has been living and creating in a Zen Buddhist monastery for years. This film containing nine musical excerpts gives insight into the everyday life and thoughts of the artist. The nearly one-hour long piece features two unreleased songs: A Thousand Kisses Deep and Never Any Good.”

I was not aware of the significance of his dedication to Buddhism at that time, but I felt inexplicable admiration for Cohen, a Sabbath-observant Jew, who was „very fond of Jesus”, moved away from the world in 1994, to live in Mount Baldy Zen Center in California for five years. When writing the review, I could not know if he found his inner peace and enlightenment he expected from the retreat. His poem titled The Collapse Of Zen draws a vivid picture of the pulsating border that separates secular life from monasticism.

Ten New Songs in 2001 and Dear Heather in 2004 deepened our relationship. I have learned more and more details of his life and art. I dug deeper into his body of work. I spent all my spare time during my business trips to London in book stores and record shops. I was able to buy books that were unreachable for me in the pre-Amazon / pre-eBay period in Hungary. To go beyond music, I bought a copy of his novels: The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers.

Then silence. Long, long silence. We believed that the artist in his seventies retired for good. We have not heard of him for years. Not even a single compilation was released after 2004. In Hungary, we have not heard about Book Of Longing, his 2006 collection of poems and short stories. Then the bomb exploded in 2008. The 73 years old singer starts touring again! Soon we learned that it did not happen voluntarily. His manager swindled him. Step by step Kelley Lynch not only cleared his bank accounts, stole most of his money from his retirement accounts and charitable trust funds as well, but started selling Cohen’s publishing rights. Despite winning a civil suit and being awarded 9 million US dollars by a Los Angeles court, Cohen never received this amount, so he had to rebuild his finances.

This move was a new lesson for us from the Master, even if he did not intend to teach us that time. With his willingness to work again, he changed my view on life drastically. We were socialized to believe that after primary school we graduate and/or learn a profession, in best cases we attend university and obtain a diploma, we perceive ourselves as adults, a finished project, we work, found a family, retire and die. Contrary to this, one of the most influential poets, songwriters of our time starts a world tour at the age of 73 and restart recording giving us incredible albums until his death at the age of 82. His is the quintessential example of life-long learning, creation, and work.

On September 24, 2008, I was fortunate enough to take a seat very close to the stage in the breathtaking Grosser Saal of the beautiful Art Nouveau building of Konzerthaus in Vienna. The second European date of the great comeback tour was a defining experience for me. The band playing with amazing grace conjured up an ethereal atmosphere in the big hall, which had a lifelong impression on the listener. It raised an unquenchable desire for beauty and harmony. In this idyll arrived the old Maestro on stage to murmur us his magical words. The whole performance had an elementary effect on me.

On August 31, 2009, I witnessed a similarily powerful concert in the Budapest Sportarena, but it was a totally different experience due to the sheer size of the rigid venue, but the love of the fans filled it with love, so the one and only Hungarian concert of Leonard Cohen lives in my memories as a feast of joy.

The year 2010 was incredibly challenging and fulfilling in my professional life. Sony Music delegated me again to run their Hungarian affiliate, and I found myself in the middle of the setup of the first Hungarian series of The X Factor. The television historically significant project enabled me to generate unparalleled success for the company and gave me invaluable insight into the music business. The most radical part of our concept was to release ten-song CDs of the four (!) most popular contestants right after the finals at an unprecedentedly low price point distributed at hundreds of newsstands across the country. We had to record the songs during the contest that was a monumental effort alone. Then we had to manufacture frightening quantities of each product to reach a nationwide coverage right before Christmas. Only a massive amount of over the counter sales would justify the idea. It was an unforgettable episode when the Polish factory’s enormous truck arrived at the residental part of Rose Hill, which is a restricted area for trucks. The driver was unable to get his monster vehicle into the smaller street of our office, so we had to unload the CDs on the main road and transport 96.000 CDs to our office’s garage with my colleagues in the evening. In a matter of weeks, we sold more than 60.000 copies of these albums. The most successful title of this batch was the compilation of the runner-up named Nicolas Takacs, who entered the show with his mindblowing cover version of Hallelujah, which remained one of the classic moments of the show until today. And it gave me one of the best moments of my career as well. In 2011 I was asked to present our business development strategy around the Hungarian X-Factor programme at the annual MD meeting in London. At the end of the session, Simon Cowell, the show’s creator, highlighted in his closing remarks that you have to look after the artists coming out of a talent show as we did in Hungary.

In 2012 finally, I met the Maestro in person. Sony Music organized a listening session of the Old Ideas album for the European MDs, and the aging artist joined us in the small projection room. He shared his thoughts on the new recordings, and we were allowed to ask questions at the end of his speech. Then he thanked us for our efforts marketing his album and I cherish the memory of the way he laughingly added that his grandchildren would be grateful for us as well since they will enjoy the financial success of this work.

In 2018 another gem of his catalogue became an integral part of my life. During my daily drives to my terminally ill father, a song of his joined me and accompanied me faithfully for days.

Everybody knows that he wrote that song
Everybody knows that Sharon Robinson co-wrote it
Everybody knows that music is essential for me
Everybody knows that lyrics are similarly vital to me
Everybody knows that I listen to each Sony Music release
So I discovered the Stills Collins album
Striking me by a cover of a song titled
Everybody Knows

„Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows”

I became a true believer in Leonard Cohen then. Despite my distance from the hedonistic views appearing in many of his work, his deep humanity, his always questioning approach, his manic quest for answers, his admirable elegance had a lasting impression on me. And his son, Adam Cohen, helps his father to teach us even after death.

The most important piece of art of 2019 came from the other side, from somebody who is not with us physically. He gives us magic words, harmonies, and sights. And he still stands for something important, shows the way. Yet the title hurts. Seven lines in seven verses precede the title, and each part shocks the reader/listener and forces us to listen to the monumental song again and again.

„I was always working steady
But I never called it art
I got my ____ together
Meeting Christ and reading Marx
It failed, my little fire
But it spread the dying spark
Go tell the young messiah
What happens to the heart”

Stirring song. Uplifting video. A blessing.