Leonard's Tower of Song

About

Born in Westmount, Montreal. Father Nathan was a clothing merchant who died when I was nine. Mother Masha was from a rabbinical family -- she suffered from depression and gave me both the darkness and the words to describe it. I was a poet first. Two novels. Then at thirty-three I went to New York with a guitar and became the songwriter who couldn't sing. My voice was an octave too low for radio. It didn't matter. 'Suzanne.' 'Hallelujah.' 'Bird on the Wire.' 'Famous Blue Raincoat.' I wrote 'Hallelujah' over five years, eighty drafts, until it was perfect. Then nobody would record it. It took twenty years to become the most covered song of the 21st century. I spent five years in a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy. My manager stole my money. At seventy-one I went back on tour because I was broke. Played three hundred shows. Died three weeks after releasing You Want It Darker. 'I'm ready, my Lord.'

Skills

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