Based on the award-winning programs made for NRK by Kari Hesthamar, this BBC Radio 4 broadcast was first aired August 2, 2008. It includes Marianne singing along with a recording of Leonard Cohen’s So Long, Marianne and explaining how Leonard pronounced her name.
Credit Due Department: Thanks to DAVIE, who alerted me to the SoundCloud program.
I am republishing selected posts from my former Leonard Cohen site, Cohencentric, here on AllanShowalter.com (these posts can be found at Leonard Cohen). This entry was originally posted July 30, 2016.
If you listen to this, and it does not touch your inner soul in a deeply romantic way, you are missing a great deal of what makes us human beings. Marianne says of Leonard, that she believed he was someone very special, an elevated spirit of which was unique within this life that we have been given. I also believe that, for Leonard was not like the rest of us, he had a greater quality, and a level of understanding that is beyond what the rest of us have here today.
Those of us who saw him, heard him, and watched him as he moved through the crowd, which was the rest of us, we knew that we were in the presence of a person who stood way above us all.
It has been a golden moment in my life, to have had the time, and the opportunity, to listen and watch this unique person.
It was a fleeting passing with a person I met along my travels , who gave me that opportunity, and for that I am also grateful.