WHO BY
FIRE
LEONARD COHEN
SONGWRITER: LEONARD COHEN
COUNTRY: CANADA
ALBUM: NEW SKIN FOR THE OLD CEREMONY
LABEL: COLUMBIA
GENRE: FOLK
YEAR: 1974
Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ (September 21, 1934 – November 7,
2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. His work explored
religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death and romantic
relationships. Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was
invested as a Companion of the Order
of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In
2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature
and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.
Cohen
pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and
did not begin a music career until 1967 at the age of 33. His
first album, Songs
of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by
three more albums of folk
music: Songs
from a Room (1969), Songs
of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974).
His 1977 record Death of a Ladies' Man,
co-written and produced by Phil
Spector, was a move away from Cohen's previous
minimalist sound. In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs,
which blended his acoustic style with jazz, East Asian, and Mediterranean
influences. Perhaps Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah", was first released on his
studio álbum Various Positions in 1984. I'm Your Man in 1988 marked Cohen's turn
to synthesized productions. In 1992, Cohen released its follow-up, The Future, which had dark lyrics and
references to political and social unrest.
Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the
release of Ten New Songs,
which was a major hit in Canada and Europe. His 11th album, Dear Heather,
followed in 2004. Following a successful string of tours between 2008 and 2013,
Cohen released three albums in the final four years of his life: Old Ideas (2012), Popular
Problems (2014) and You
Want It Darker (2016), the last of which was
released three weeks before his death. A posthumous album titled Thanks
for the Dance was released in November 2019, his
fifteenth and final studio album.
Released in 1974, New Skin for the Old
Ceremony is the fourth studio album by Leonard
Cohen. On this album he began to move away from
the minimal instrumentation of his earlier work, with the use of violas, mandolins, banjos, guitars,
percussion and other instruments producing a more orchestrated (but
nevertheless spare) sound. The album has been certified silver in the UK,
but never entered the Billboard Top 200.
And who by fire, who
by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely
slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who by brave
assent, who by accident,
who in solitude, who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains, who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?
Postagens
