Leonard Cohen

For four decades, Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time, a figure whose body of work achieves greater depths of mystery and meaning as time goes on.  His songs have set a virtually unmatched standard in their seriousness and range.  Sex, spirituality, religion, power – he has relentlessly examined the largest issues in human lives, always with a full appreciation of how elusive answers can be to the vexing questions he raises.  But those questions, and the journey he has traveled in seeking to address them, are the ever-shifting substance of his work, as well as the reasons why his songs never lose their overwhelming emotional force. 

There are a few pictures of LC sporting a beret; the best one a photograph that was sent to me by a Canadian friend (thanks, Mike!) of LC on a Honda GoldWing (which must be somewhere in the late 70's.

In later years LC seems to be wearing fedora style hats only, but I believe one of the hats (2nd from right, bottom) on this coat rack is a beret... (photograph by Annie Liebovitz).