Leonard Cohen, wounded but still walking – archive, November 1972

8 November 1972 Martin Walker talks to Leonard Cohen, whose new book of poems has just been published

What an agonising, dreadful thing it is to be the cleverest boy in the country. To have your poems lauded and your sensitivity praised and your delicate books sighed over and you are still an adolescent. Where the hell do you go from there?

You try new fields to conquer, new forms of expression. You write novels and then they win critical acclaim and so you turn to guitar and you write things that you deprecate as “only songs” and there you are the bard of a generation and you still hear the lauds and sighs and praisiaries. What then?

Related: An interview with Leonard Cohen: From the archive, 29 August 1970

Related: Leonard Cohen, legendary singer-songwriter, dies aged 82