Leonard Cohen To Enter Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame - Tower Of Song To Remain Primary Residence

December 14th, 2007 · 1 Comment

It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll But I Like It

On March 10, 2008, Leonard Cohen will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in ceremonies at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.¹

I’m happy that Leonard Cohen is being honored. I’m sure a lot of Leonard Cohen fans are similarly happy about it. And, I hope Leonard Cohen is happy about being elected to another Hall of Fame (he was previously inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame).

Beyond that - well, as you may have heard, it’s only rock ‘n roll, but I like it.

The Other Guys

The Ampersand entertainment news feed² of The National Post, which advises us that it is “Canada’s trusted source for national news, financial news, world news, commentary, entertainment and sport,” opens its coverage of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees with this query:

What do Madonna, the Vultures, John Mellencamp, The Dave Clark Five, and Leonard Cohen have in common?

Their answer is “They’re all officially famous.”

The more accurate Heck of a Guy answer is

They are all entertainers who will be entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 - except The Vultures, which are “medium to large-sized birds that are adapted to a diet of dead animals. They have weak feet with blunt talons and bare heads to prevent the feathers from becoming dirty while feeding. Their long, broad wings are efficient for long distance soaring. Vultures regurgitate food from their crops for their young instead of carrying prey to the nest.”³ And, according to Wikipedia, “A group of vultures is occasionally called a venue, and when circling in the air a group of vultures is called a kettle.”

Oh, and a group called The Ventures, known for surf rock instrumentals, will also enter the 2008 class of the Hall of Fame.

The other nominees, Afrika Bambaataa, Chic, The Beastie Boys, and Donna Summer were not selected for admission and, as far as I can determine, don’t even get the home version of the Hall of Fame game as a consolation prize.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Fun Fact

Leonard Cohen is the third Canadian solo act to be admitted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell preceded him.

Controversy

Not everyone is as Cohenthusiastic as Heck of a Guy. The opposing point of view is presented at its histrionic best in the Detroit News article, Rock Hall of Fame stirs controversy with some oddball choices. A representative excerpt follows:

Of this year’s inductees, Marsh [Dave Marsh Marsh is a rock critic, an editor of Detroit-based Creem Magazine, and a member of the Hall of Fame nominating committee] is happy that Madonna and the Dave Clark Five got in, but irate about Cohen and the Ventures. “I realized a long time ago part of the deal with this process is that there are some people who need to be in who I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out than listen to,” Marsh said. “Like the Grateful Dead (who were inducted in 1994). But at some level, it’s about fame, too. And none of that justifies the Ventures and Leonard Cohen. None of it. The problem is, you’ve got a bunch of people who know a lot about music on the (nominating) committee, but then you have a lot of people doing the voting who don’t.”

The article goes on to profile Leonard Cohen thusly: Leonard Cohen: A dour Canadian both lauded and derided for his “poetry,” he sang of “Suzanne” in a funereal drone.

My goodness, the motor city press has certainly worked itself into a tizzy.

For the record, I think they make a legitimate point. To delineate an art form called “Rock and Roll” that includes among its officially recognized group of best performers Grandmaster Flash, James Taylor, and Miles Davis but rejects Mitch Ryder, the Marvelettes, and Ted Nugent requires gerrymandering expertise of the level practiced in the Chicago City Council.

But, and here I adjust my theme only modestly, “Even though I like it, it’s only rock and roll.”

Most Popular Cohen Cliche

My unofficial, not statistically valid review of the use of Leonard Cohen song phrases in on-line stories about his election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has “I’m Your Man” as occurring most frequently with “Everybody Knows” in second place.

No one has, until now, used …

The Future

Now that Leonard Cohen is officially a rocker, fans should be alert to any signals that has begun to assimilate, affecting those characteristics rampant in the (gated) communities of rock gods. Possible signs and symptoms follow:

He insists on calling his next tour “Leonardpalooza” (or the equally worrisome variation, “The Poetpalooza”)
He takes up the electric guitar, begins wearing some serious bling, refers to Jarko and Anjani as his posse, and wonders aloud about the cost of giant flames, helicopter entries, and other stage effects.
He treats one of the paparazzi rudely, refusing to give him more than thee muffins and cutting him off abruptly after two hours
He does the traditional naked Rolling Stone cover shot (preceded by many others, most famously by John Lennon, most infamously by Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears, and most auspiciously by David Cassidy)
Like the others, he begins covering songs; like the others, he covers songs by Leonard Cohen
This time, instead of spending five years in a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy, he checks into a nicely appointed Rehab-Spa for five weeks

Conclusion

There’s only one thing left for me to say:

Rock On, Leonard

And if you run into Bruce or Prince in New York, tell them DrHGuy says “Hi.”

Footnotes

The schedule for the taking of Berlin is being finalized but is not yet available.↩
The slogan of The Ampersand is “It’s everything between Arts & Life.” Get it? Quite droll. If the slogan had been “It’s everything between Arts and Life,” I suppose they would have called it “The Conjunction.”↩
From The Peregrine Fund Site ↩

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