A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, on His 82nd Birthday

I used to hope in vain to be Bob Dylan, or the next Bob Dylan, or just Dylanesque. Then I realized it was pointless. Bob Dylan achieved his immortality in his early 20s and everything he did thereafter, while often spectacular, just built on the myth of his halcyon youth. And so, at the age of 40, I’ve curbed my dreams of becoming the next Bob Dylan. I still, though, find it entirely reasonable to hope to be the next Leonard Cohen who turns 82 today.

In his rise from minor literary personality (in his late twenties), to underground poet-musician (early thirties) to arena-filling songwriter-legend (through the next five decades), he’s proved that youth is cute but that with age brings authority and power: In the last 50 years, he’s written the kinds of songs that feel less like grains of mercurial sand and more like immortal mountains.

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