Leonard Cohen enters golden age at 75

Leonard Cohen performing in Asheville, NC.

When men stopped wearing fedoras to work, a golden age passed. When Leonard Cohen wore a fedora to work on Sunday night, he ushered in a golden age of his own.

Cohen, a highly esteemed and respected 75-year-old singer and songwriter, possesses a chiseled voice that lends itself to a room in a way that few others can. His songs are filled with a credence that draws from his reputation as one of the 20th century’s foremost lyricists. And with a nine-piece band of perfectionist-musicians brought along to cushion his commanding baritone, Cohen’s evening performance in Asheville, NC, was for a lack of better words, mind-blowing.

“This will probably be the last time we pass this way,” said Cohen between songs, eliciting a collective sigh. “But we’re going to give you all we’ve got.” He then proceeded to give an impeccable three-hour performance that spanned his entire body of work, hypnotizing the audience with perfectly orchestrated hits such as “Dance Me To The End Of Love” and “Suzanne.”

Unusually agile for a 75-year-old man, Cohen dropped to his knees at several moments during the show, as if to further invoke the aura of mystique garnered from his recent time spent in a Zen Buddhist monastery. Perhaps during his time there he learned a thing or two about predestination. “I was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice,” sang Cohen on “Tower of Song,” a meandering eighties ballad that explores the predicament of an aging songwriter.

The show progressed, and Cohen kept the audience’s attention like a clever sage from a bygone era, at times reciting poetry in between songs. The resonance of his lyrics was augmented by the weight of listening to a singer who happened to be four years older than the depression-era auditorium itself. “I haven’t been this happy since the end of World War Two,” he bellowed during “Waiting For The Miracle To Come,” meaning every word of it. Near the end of his much-covered hit “Everybody Knows,” Cohen’s line—”take one last look at this sacred heart before it blows—” was undoubtedly taken with a sobering grain of reality by more than a few of the audience members.

Regardless, Cohen’s performances of 2009 deserve to be regarded among the year’s best, if not the decade’s. It’s a rare thing to see an artist evolve in a fashion similar to Cohen’s, as his career draws to a close while at the top of his act. His songs transcend era, which is perhaps why Cohen is able to pull off that fedora with such style—the reminder of a golden age that continues on. As if we needed one.