Leonard Cohen's Prince Of Asturias Speech - No Overdubbing

Your Majesty your Royal Highnesses excellencies members of the jury distinguished laureates ladies and gentlemen it is a great honor to stand here before you tonight perhaps like the great maestro Riccardo Muti I am not used to standing in front of an audience without an orchestra behind me but I will do my best as a solo artist tonight I stayed up all night last night wondering what I might say to this August assembly and after I had eaten all the chocolate bars and peanuts in the minibar I scribbled a few words I don't think I have to refer to them obviously I am deeply touched to be recognized by the foundation but I've come here tonight to express another dimension of gratitude I think I can do it in three or four minutes and I will try when I was packing in Los Angeles to come here I had a sense of unease because I've always felt some ambiguity about an award for poetry poetry comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers so I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command in other words if I knew where the good songs came from I'd go there more often I was compelled in the midst of that ordeal of packing to go and open my guitar I have a condo guitar which was made in Spain in the great workshop at number seven grabbing a street a beautiful instrument that I acquired over 40 years ago I took it out of the case I lifted it it seemed to be filled with helium it was so light and I brought it to my face I put my face close to the beautifully designed rosette and I inhaled the fragrance of the living wood you know that would never dies I inhaled the fragrance of cedar as fresh as the first day that I acquired the guitar and a voice seemed to say to me you are an old man and you have not said thank you you have not brought your gratitude back to the soil from which this fragrance arose and so I come here tonight to thank the soil and the soul of this people that has given me so much because I know just as an identity card is not a man a credit rating is not a country now you know of my deep Association and Confraternity with the poet Federico Garcia Lorca I could say that when I was a young man an adolescent and I hungered for a voice I studied the English poets and I knew their work well and I copied their styles but I could not find a voice it was only when when I read even in translation the works of Lorca that I understood that there was a voice it is not that I copied his voice I would not dare but he gave me permission to find a voice to locate a voice that is to locate a self a self that is not fixed a self that struggles for its own existence and as I grew older I understood that instructions came with this voice what were these instructions the instructions were never to lament casually and if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awakes us all it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty and so I had a voice but I did not have an instrument I did not have a song and now I'm going to tell you very briefly a story of how I got my song because I was an indifferent guitar player I banged the chords I only knew a few of them I sat around with my college friends drinking and singing the folk songs of the popular songs of the day but I never in a thousand years thought of myself as a musician or as a singer one day in the early 60s I was visiting my mother's house in Montreal the houses beside a park and in the park there's a tennis court where many people come to watch the beautiful young tennis players enjoy their sport I wandered back to this park which I'd known since my childhood and there was a young man playing a guitar he was playing a flamenco guitar and he was surrounded by two or three girls and boys who were listening to him I loved the way he played there was something about the way he played that that captured me it was the way I wanted to play and knew that I would never be able to play and I sat there with the other listeners for a few moments and when there was a silence and appropriate silence I asked him if he would give me guitar lessons he was a young man from Spain and we could only communicate in my broken French in his broken France he didn't speak English and he agreed to give me guitar lessons I pointed to my mother's house which you could see from the tennis court and we made an appointment we settled the price and he came to my mother's house the next day and he said let me hear you play something I tried to play something he said you don't know how to play do you I said no I really don't know how to play he said first of all let me tune your guitar it's it's all out of tune so he took the guitar and and he tuned and he said it's not a bad guitar it wasn't the Conte but it wasn't a bad guitar so he handed back to me said now play couldn't play any better he said let me show you some chords and he took the guitar and he produced a sound from that guitar that I'd never heard and he he played a sequence of chords with a tremolo and he said now you do it I said it said of the question I can't possibly do it he said let me put your fingers on the frets and he put my fingers on the frets and he said now now play it was a mess he said I'll come back tomorrow he came back tomorrow he put my hands on the guitar he placed it on my lap in the way that was appropriate and and I began again with those six chords six chord progression that many many flamenco songs obey I was a little better that day the third day improved somewhat improved but I knew the chords now and I knew that although I couldn't coordinate my fingers with my thumb to produce the correct tremolo pattern I knew the court I knew them very very well by this point the next day he didn't come he didn't come I had the number of his of his boarding house in Montreal I phoned to find out why he had missed the appointment and they told me that he'd taken his life that he committed suicide I knew nothing about the man I I did not know what part of Spain he came from I did not know why he came to Montreal I did not know why he stayed there I did not know why he appeared in that tennis court I did not know why he took his life I was deeply saddened of course but now I disclose something that I've never spoken in public it was those six chords it was that guitar pattern there has been the basis of all my songs and all my music so now you will begin to understand the dimensions of the gratitude I have for this country everything that you have found favorable in my work comes from this place everything everything that you have found favorable and my songs in my poetry are inspired by this soil so I thank you so much for the warm hospitality that you have shown my work because it is really yours and you have allowed me to fix my signature to the bottom of the page thank you so much ladies and gentlemen you you

Channel: Allan Showalter

Views: 1,293,399

Rating: 4.8917661 out of 5

Keywords: Leonard Cohen, Prince Of Asturias Awards

Id: VIR5ps8usuo

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/jmedk]

That was lovely!

[u/tambarskelfir]

I was just thinking about this speech today, it is awesome. Leonard Cohen always had immense respect and admiration for Spain.

[u/Skeptic_moron]

I saw him live around 2011 near Granada, so frail and old yet he fill the whole place alone. Spoke about Lorca and Spain. This guy was awesome, the real thing. Cool and humble like nobody else in popular music.