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When Jarvis Cocker Met Leonard Cohen

6 Music's Jarvis Cocker speaks to Leonard Cohen about his song-writing, loves and life ahead of the release of Old Ideas, his first album in eight years.

6 Music's Jarvis Cocker speaks to Leonard Cohen about his song-writing, loves and life ahead of the release of Old Ideas, his first album in eight years.

The 77-year-old Canadian artist, who began reading his verse with a little jazz piano accompaniment in the 50s and published the novel Beautiful Losers in 1966, didn't release his debut album until 1968.

The lyricism of Cohen's songs has always betrayed his literary origins, but he speaks frankly about how challenging he finds the songwriting process, even after the release of a twelfth album. Rather than choosing from a multitude of ideas, he claims to find himself "scraping the bottom of the barrel" and just trying to get a beginning, middle and end.

Nevertheless the ten new compositions, which deal with familiar Cohen themes of love and lost, death and spirituality, have already received a favourable critical reception ["new gems from an old master" according to The Telegraph].

You can hear Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service every week, at 4pm on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 6 Music.

57 minutes

Last on

Wed 15 Feb 2012 22:00

Music Played

  • Leonard Cohen

    Anyhow

    • Columbia.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Going Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

    • Columbia.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Crazy to Love You

    • Columbia.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Banjo

    • Old Ideas.
    • COLUMBIA.
    • 8.
  • Chuck Berry

    Roll Over Beethoven

    • CHESS.
  • Leonard Cohen

    I Left A Woman Waiting

    • Columbia.
  • Judy Collins

    Suzanne

    • Elektra.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Beside The Shepherd

    • Folkways.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Winter Lady

    • Columbia.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Improvisation

    • Columbia.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Minute Prologue

    • Columbia.
  • John Cale

    Hallelujah

    • EastWest.
  • Leonard Cohen

    Darkness

    • COLUMBIA.
  • Marcello Minerbi

    Zorba's Dance

    • Sleepy Shores - Instrumental Classics.
    • Old Gold.

Broadcast

  • Wed 15 Feb 2012 22:00