'If on your travels you should come upon a book of Poems And Songs by Leonard Cohen - pick it up', is as good a piece of life advice as any. At the very least you won't regret it nor curse the day. How many books of Leonard Cohen lyrics and poems does a person need in their life, though? Isn't just one enough? Or for some is one too many, even? Well, like snowdrops no two Leonard Cohen books are the same and like that other saying 'It's not where you're from it's where you're at', with all the many Leonard Cohen books that have been published it's all down to the selection of content and to the format. To presentation and arrangement.
A large amount of Leonard Cohen's works have come from a dark place, as I'm sure we all know. An endless, dark night of his soul, it could be said. Where his works come to fruition, however, is often a whole different place entirely. It's a place of deep love. A languid, still, deep pool to be drunk from by the thirsty traveller. An oasis in a desert that from a distance might look like a mirage but when reached is found to be real, cool (in all meanings of the word) and tasting like nectar on the tongue. Men - or rather men not bound up in knots of the R D Laing variety - appreciate it whilst women tend to disrobe and bathe in its waters.
You may have noticed, actually, that Leonard Cohen was always surrounded by beautiful women. Though he remained a bachelor, he always had a beautiful woman on his arm. The explanation for this isn't because beautiful women are naturally attracted to depression but because they are attracted to love, to certainty, to humour, and to the self behind the eyes. The men don't know but the little girls understand, as Jim Morrison put it.
A book of Leonard Cohen's lyrics and poems is meant to be savoured. It's meant to be sipped like you would a fine wine from a bottle brought up from the cellar for a special occasion. Each poem, each lyric, each composition is meant to be rolled about the tongue and have it make acquaintance with your palate.
A book of Leonard Cohen's lyrics and poems is meant to be indulged and to indulge you. It's a seduction. An enticement. An intercourse. To coin a Patti Smith phrase, it's nothing less than a brainiac amour.
Don't you get tired of accolades and plaudits used to promote and exult the quality or even the significance of whatever book they're referring to? All too often you'll get a quote from someone like Thurston Moore or someone who's obviously an acquaintance of the author plastered onto the front cover of a book praising it to the skies but on actually reading the book you end up wondering if they've read the same one as you or if they've even read it at all? Or sometimes you'll get a quote simply attributed to where it was written such as 'Mojo Magazine' or the 'Sunday Times' rather than the actual name of the writer, as if the name of the platform gives the quote some added weight.
So to Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star by Ian Hunter that says of it on the back cover 'This best-selling title is universally acclaimed as one of the most outstanding and essential music books ever written'. And on the front cover a quote from Q Magazine: 'This is the greatest music book ever written'.
Well that certainly raises the bar somewhat and places a bit of weight upon its shoulders. So let's tip-toe in and see what's going on, shall we? Although firstly, let's consider Mott The Hoople for a moment.
All The Young Dudes, of course, is the song most people know Mott The Hoople for and the Bowie story behind it is probably as equally well-known. Mott The Hoople were a quintessentially English rock band who seemed to fall between the two stools of Heavy Rock and Glam but in doing so, the kind of mega-success achieved by other bands who fully aligned themselves with either of these two genres eluded them. Mott The Hoople's impact upon those who appreciated them, however, was of much more substance.
As has been pointed out before, the Velvet Underground never sold many albums but everyone who did buy one often went on to form a band. Mott The Hoople may never have reached the same level of stardom as some of their peers but the people they did reach, they influenced. A prime example of this is Mick Jones of The Clash, who as a teenager would follow Mott The Hoople around the country, bunking trains to get to their gigs. The autobiographical nature of some of Mott The Hoople's songs is evident in many Clash songs as is similarities in guitar playing.
In addition, let's consider for a moment All The Young Dudes, a contender for one of the greatest rock'n'roll songs of all time - and that's my opinion, not that of Thurston Moore, Q Magazine or some hack from the Sunday Times.
All The Young Dudes is like an excerpt from a teenage opera, a kiss goodbye to the Sixties and a hello to the first rays of light from the Seventies. It's the view from the top floor of Leonard Cohen's mythic Tower Of Song peering down into the abyss below through a cider and speed-tinted mindset. In a world of little meaning it's a song trying to create one, a song of a time when girls could be boys and boys were learning to be girls, when any pop hero of note would be wearing make-up, stack heels and a screwed down hairdo. It's a signifier of a generation landslide where the world is spent and the teenage dream has ended at Altamont in a flurry of fists, the waving of guns and the flashing of knives. All The Young Dudes is a last grasp for hope eternal. It's the sound of the ball being passed in the hope that there is someone there to catch it. It's the capturing of the moment before the dawning of punk rock - or the dawning of The Clash, at least.
Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star, as Ian Hunter puts it in the preface, is 'a documentary about Mott The Hoople when on a five-week tour of America in 1972, a letter to a fan in the front row at the Rainbow, a diary to keep in touch.' It could be then a letter to Mick Jones himself, in his pre-Clash, crushed velvet loons and afghan coat, his face full of spots from ripping off the stars from his face. Funky little boat race.
On describing the band flying in to LaGuardia airport in New York from England, Ian writes 'Everybody in the world should see the world. It should be made compulsory. The kids from Bradford, Newcastle, Liverpool, Sunderland and all those northern towns whose only buzz is signing on Wednesdays and Fridays may never get to see the sight I see now and I'm woefully inadequate at translating it to paper'.
As anyone who has ever flown to New York would testify, the sight at night of the lights below as you come in to land is something to behold. Akin to looking down upon rather than looking up to the mothership taking off at the end of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. The sight of looking down upon clouds even, rather than looking up to them is mind-boggling itself when you're new to flying.
What Ian Hunter does, however, is not only convey the sheer wonder of going to America but also the trouble that can come with it. The winter cold, the snow, the flight delays, the discomfort.
In the same light - though he doesn't explicitly say it as such - it should probably be compulsory for everybody to play in a rock'n'roll band, at least for a time. Especially in a rock'n'roll band of the Mott The Hoople ilk, touring America in the early 1970s. To suggest it would effect you somewhat is an understatement though what Ian Hunter accentuates is that it wouldn't be all for the better. Of course, there are certain highs such as coming off stage after a successful concert that can't be replicated through any other means but there are also plenty of lows that would leave you with your world-view altered irrecoverably. In particular when it came to your opinion of the human race, or certain members of it at least.
Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star isn't the greatest music book ever written or rather it might have been in 1974 when it was first published but it is no longer. It's all subjective obviously but there have been better music books written since, a good example I would argue being the one about Nico - Songs They Never Play On The Radio, by James Young. If you've ever played in a band or ever dreamed of being in one then Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star is probably essential reading, far more so in fact than that other much-touted 'bible', Hammer Of The Gods, the story of Led Zeppelin's so-say on tour antics.
For anyone who's ever travelled through America, Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star is also going to appeal as it's more than likely going to ring a few bells. One of the most surprising things about it, however, is the cameo appearance of Keith Moon who rather than being depicted as the cliched madman of rock'n'roll, is presented in a whole different and really nice light. Which in a way is evidence of Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star being different to a lot of other music books in the fact that it draws back the curtain on the mythology of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll and shows it as it all really is: rouge blusher, hangovers, poverty, the good, the bad, the ugly and all points in-between.
