Leonard Cohen Fun Facts, Quotes and Tweets

14^th October 2016

Quote: "It's like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain." Leonard Cohen insists fellow singer/songwriter Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature honour is long overdue - and a little obvious.

12^th September 2014

Quote: "Being a songwriter is like being a nun: you're married to a mystery. My methods are obscure and not to be replicated. A song will yield itself if you stick with it long enough. But you've got to stick with it for a very long time." Singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen admits he's a tortured artist.

11^th August 2014

Fact: Veteran singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen will celebrate his upcoming 80th birthday by releasing a new album. Popular Problems, his first studio release since Old Ideas in 2012, will hit music retailers on 22 September (14), a day after he marks the age milestone.

31^st January 2012

Quote: "There's so many fine covers of it. It's all over YouTube... People will send me their 11-year-old daughter singing it. That's always very charming. And there are great versions of it by k.d. lang. Bon Jovi has a great version of it." Leonard Cohen on the covers of his song Hallelujah.

19^th July 2011

Fact: Country legend Kris Kristofferson wants the first three lines of pal Leonard Cohen's classic Bird on a Wire engraved on his tombstone: 'Like a bird on a wire/Like a drunk in the midnight choir/I have tried in my way to be free'.

19^th November 2009

Fact: Colombian-born pop star Shakira listened to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen lyrics to learn English.

21^st April 2009

Fact: California's Coachella Festival rang up its second biggest year ever at the weekend (17-19Apr09), with 160,000 music fans braving scorching temperatures to see Paul McCartney, The Killers, The Cure, Morrissey and Leonard Cohen, among other top acts. Only 2007's Coachella boasted a better attendance. The weekend's event at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio was the 10th Coachella.

10^th March 2009

Quote: "The touring and travelling have been monastic. It's been so great, because I don't see anyone. I go directly from the stage into a car and back to my hotel room." Leonard Cohen loves his reclusive life on the road.

5^th August 2008

Fact: Singer/songwriter James Taylor has recorded versions of Leonard Cohen's SUZANNE and the Dixie Chicks' SOME DAYS YOU GOTTA DANCE for a new covers album.

19^th January 2008

Quote: "Take Johnny Cash's last CD, I couldn't even play it. He just sounded so frail... If I was ever down, tough, I'd put on Leonard Cohen. Then you know you aren't that down." Former BEATLE Ringo Starr found Cash's AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS a difficult listen.

25^th May 2006

Quote: "I feel all kinds of unusual feelings in his company - like humility and modesty." U2 frontman Bono insists veteran songwriter Leonard Cohen has a strange effect on him.