Now that rock music is certifiably dead, we can pick through its remains and figure out what mattered. In the 1960s, Canadian poet Leonard Cohen emerged as one of the great lyricists of the rock and roll era.
Though he performed with some of the biggest rock names of the day, Cohen’s songs hardly fit the category—or any category. He was always an outsider, smartly dressed and a full decade older than most performers of the 1960s youthquake. Already a seasoned poet when he made his debut in popular music, Cohen remained a B-lister for much of his career. But while other stars’ popularity waned, his rose as his career progressed.
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