The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Secular Sainthood, the Archives, and boygenius

The Authority File

In the final episode of this series, Kait Pinder and Joel Deshaye, coeditors of The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Response, Reappraisal, and Rediscovery, discuss Cohen’s legacy and future Cohen studies. First, Joel explains how the popularization of Cohen as a “secular saint” coincided with the degradation of religion in the 1960s by counterculture movements. Next, Kait chats about Cohen’s impact on modern music through the 2023 song “Leonard Cohen” by indie rock group boygenius. She also references Lana Del Rey’s 2018 track “Mariners Apartment Complex,” exploring how today’s artists reinterpret and allude to Cohen in their songwriting. Finally, Kait and Joel dig into the Cohen estate’s goal to collect Cohen’s archives into a centralized location. They highlight the importance of accessibility and flexible reproducibility of Cohen’s records to further scholarship and generate new listeners and readers of Cohen for generations to come.

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