Diamonds In The Mine
I was always a gawky, weird kid. I was a gawky, weird Jewish kid. As I grew up, things didnât get any less or gawky or awkward. But my hair did get thicker and longer and curlier. I started playing music when I was 9. I started writing music when I was 14. I started writing things that were listenable when I was 16. That was the year I started learning from Leonard Cohen. My mother had always played Songs of Love and Hate when I was young. I sang along and belted So Long, Marianne like the bekl I was. But, in part thanks to a dear friend, in part to fixing my momâs record player out of boredom, I started listening to Songs of Leonard Cohen on repeat. And I learned triplets. I learned rambling lines that matched our natural (for Hebrews) hexametric leanings.
After college, I briefly became a hot commodity in the Nashville songwriting scene for my style. I called it âLeonard Cohen if he wore a white suit and matching Stetsonâ. I still only write waltzes and ballads. I still pour my ache and love and beauty and hate into every song I write. I learned this from Leonard Cohen.
Most importantly, I learned to be comfortable from Leonard Cohen. To me, he was always a man who laid everything that he was flat out in front of you and asked you to deal with it or not - your call. I was a gawky, weird Jewish kid writing punk songs in 3/4 and filled to the brim with triplets. But Leonard Cohen made me know that was okay. Go be gawky and weird. And you better put everything you are out in front of them. And you better be ready for them to reject it. But you know youâll be okay with either result. Because you were who you are. And you just keep on writing songs and being you. And you always let them see you sweat. Because, at the end of it all, you get to be okay.
Iâll miss you always, you strange, dark man who seemed more content than anyone else Iâve ever known. Iâll keep you beautiful words and evil sounds in my heart always.
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