In a truly nostalgic episode of the wonderfully animated lost interview series “Blank on Blank“, the very recently late Leonard Cohen read aloud a gorgeous original poem that he had written 20 years earlier and opened up about his creative process, particularly the changing nature of his own songs in a December 1974 interview with WBAI FM in New York City.
I’m always pleased when somebody sings a song of mine. In fact I never get over that initial rush of happiness when someone says they are going to sing a song of mine. I always like it. …I can’t I can’t honestly say that I have heard my songs done in a way that totally satisfies me. …I don’t know if there’s really versions of the songs that strike me the way that I would like to be struck. Not that my own are that way either. …It’s ok, you know, because that song enters the world and it gets changed like everything else. That’s ok as long as there are more authentic versions. But a good song I think will get changed.
