The Various Positions of Leonard Cohen

In the third volume of Michael Posner’s oral biography of Leonard Cohen, friends, lovers, spiritual kin, musicians, and business partners all tell stories of the besuited poet and singer-songwriter. This final segment begins in 1986 when the singer Jennifer Warnes, his sometime lover and collaborator, releases Famous Blue Raincoat, an album of Leonard Cohen songs that helps revive his reputation, and runs all the way through Cohen’s widely noted death in 2016. Cohen’s late-in-life resurgence as a recording and touring musician receives well-deserved attention but the most impressive episodes in this volume show us Cohen, in the 1990s, turning 60 and confronting the chaos inside himself while carrying on with his life’s work. It’s a crowdsourced redemption story with graying flecks and a dramatic soundtrack.

Cohen’s reputation owes quite a lot to other musicians who covered and championed his music, starting with Judy Collins who recorded “Suzanne” In 1966, she added three more of Cohen’s songs to her next album. In 1991, the tribute album I’m Your Fan presented Cohen’s songwriting in recordings by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, R.E.M, and other heroes of alternative rock. The iconic John Cale cover of “I’m Your Fan” was also included on this album. “Hallelujah,” But the song might not be covered by Jeff Buckley. However, the song may not have become an enduring pop classic.

These personal storms, which are just as dramatic as those in the previous books, but more fascinating and revealing, roll through this volume. It is almost hard to sympathize with Cohen as he continues to spend more time at Mount Baldy Zen Center in Claremont, Calif. where he takes a rigorous course in Zen Buddhism under Kyozan Joshuau Sasaki. Old Leonard is a man in trouble: pulled by his own urges to dissipate and whore; drowning with prescription-grade depression; seduced and seduced both by fame and Hollywood by Rebecca De Mornay; and, to his credit and his singing career, he was unable to leave his job as a poet.

It seems that his Zen Buddhist practice was a way to get through the madness. However, it was not a path to sanity in itself. Imagine a Zen garden that is balanced, artistic, and peaceful. Picture New Age bedlam. “You do realize that we are on a hospital ship here, where all of us are broken, and none will ever get well and the ship is sinking,” Cohen shared the following with James, an initiate