Me & Leonard: Pains in the Ass
There are tens of thousands of women (and some men, I imagine) who probably feel "Leonard Cohen was so great, and so sexy, how could anyone lucky enough to be with him EVER leave him, no matter how weird & irritating he was? *I* would NEVER have left him no matter what!"
Yet, most of Leonard's songs are about finding himself in a situation where someone is leaving him. He rarely gave us details of how & why these excruciating separations had to happen--for all we know, it was because he kept leaving the cap off the toothpaste and his lover finally got fed up...
In these sort of songs, Mr. Cohen never tried to say he was right & the other person was wrong. He would end up saying something like: "Even though it all went wrong / I'll stand before the Lord of Song / With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah..."
My point is that no matter how interesting, rich, famous, wise, good in bed, and great a conversationalist Leonard Cohen was, there seem to have been dozens of women who found they could not live with him for one reason or another. You can feel his deep sorrow and regret in these songs, as he considers what possibilities may have been lost along with the relationships.
Like Mr. Cohen was before he joined the Tao, I'm an Eccentric Zen Jew Singer with many irritating qualities, but without the saving grace of Leonard's transcendental talent, wide fame & big money. It must be very difficult to live with someone like me. In fact, I KNOW that it's extremely challenging, because I wake up to myself every day, and I am the first one affected by my own attitudes & behaviour. If I had a choice, I might choose not to be Curt / C Ra on certain days, but as you see, I am stuck...