{"id":354110,"date":"2026-01-05T22:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/354110\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T22:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:53:15","slug":"the-band-leonard-cohen-called-the-bread-and-wine-of-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/354110\/","title":{"rendered":"The band Leonard Cohen called “the bread and wine” of pop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Leonard<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Mon 5 January 2026 19:30, UK <\/p>\n

By 1974, Leonard Cohen<\/a> was a bit of a phantom in the pop music landscape; a mysterious outsider looking down on the whole scene from above, and yet still inarguably a participant in it. He\u2019d released four studio albums by this point, and two of them had been top five records on the UK charts. But having just turned 40, Cohen was hardly a pop star.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel totally separate from it,\u201d Cohen told Zig Zag magazine in \u201874. \u201cI love the phenomenon, but I don\u2019t live as one of those figures. My own personal style is very, very different. I don\u2019t perform in the same kind of field. My life is completely different and it developed on different grounds that came to my mind much earlier than the pop movement. My lifestyle was formulated in the middle \u201950s and has changed very little since then.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Cohen spoke of the \u201cphenomenon\u201d he loved, it\u2019s unlikely he had \u201870s radio staples like David Essex or the Osmonds in mind. It was the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll phenomenon, now twenty years old in its own right, that he seemed to have a soft spot for, having met many of its central figures since beginning his own music career in 1967. <\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the more lyrically gifted songwriters were usually the ones that earned his respect, with Lou Reed and Van Morrison among them. As was typical of men of Cohen\u2019s generation, though, praise often came packaged with a subtle jab.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought [Lou\u2019s songs] were excellent; really fine,\u201d Cohen said of Reed\u2019s early work<\/a> with the Velvet Underground. \u201cI used to praise him. . . . In those days I guess he wasn\u2019t getting very many compliments of his work and I certainly wasn\u2019t. So we told each other how good we were. I liked him immediately because Nico liked him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tthe<\/a>The happy smile of Leonard Cohen. (Credit: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Cohen had far less personal history with the artists still reigning in 1974 as the biggest band on Earth, the Rolling Stones. \u201cI met Mick Jagger once in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel,\u201d Cohen recalled, \u201cand he said, \u2018Are you in New York for a poetry reading?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the full extent of the Mick-Leonard relationship, but it didn\u2019t stop Cohen from developing a certain perspective on the Stones, which one might call respectful, if coolly detached. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some of their songs I like very much,\u201d Cohen told Zig Zag in 1974, during a period when \u2018It\u2019s Only Rock \u2018n Roll\u2019 <\/a>was climbing the charts. \u201cI think it\u2019s wonderful, the phenomenon of the Rolling Stones\u2014the figure of Mick Jagger. They are the bread and wine of the pop groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps sensing he was granting them too many kudos, though, Cohen again clarified that the Glimmer Twins\u2019 kool-aid was never going to work on a gentleman of his own age and sophistication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little bit older than other people when I came into contact with these figures,\u201d Cohen explained, \u201cand I\u2019d already had my mind blown by older and much more outrageous people that I\u2019d met in my youth, so I wasn\u2019t about to succumb to the kind of fever that they produce in younger people. But I\u2019ve always admired them from the slightly humorous point of view. I never did seriously ask myself if Mick Jagger was the Devil. But I think as figures they\u2019re quite interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there you have it\u2014in the span of 20 seconds, Cohen\u2019s assessment of the Rolling Stones went from \u201cwonderful\u201d to \u201cslightly humorous\u201d to \u201cinteresting.\u201d But then again, as Cohen acknowledged in the same interview, \u201cI\u2019m not too interested in music. . . . I don\u2019t have a record player most of the time.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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