Leonard Cohen in Barcelona

Last year we took a whirlwind weekend trip to Spain. Our friends had swaped their Brooklyn apartment with a couple in Barcelona for a week and we simply could not turn down a chance to crash on their sofa for a few days. The experience was amazing - playing bingo in a Spanish speaking casino, sharing a plate of homemade paella at the home of a local couple, visiting the incredible Sagrada Familia by Gaudi and eating a dinner of dumplings at midnight are just a few of my favorite memories.

The trip ended with a VERY early flight out. We tip toed out of the apartment just an hour or two after the party on the street outside died down and fell into one of the only cabs wandering the streets at that hour. Being up so early is peaceful in its own right, but we had the incredible luck to lay in the back of a cab which was playing the peaceful hum of Leonard Cohen. Although we didn't know who it was at the time, together Brian and I listened intently to the beautiful lyrics. He emanated a simplicity, profoundness and depth I had never heard before. I cried as we sped through the dim lit city.

Upon arriving at the airport we tried our best to ask in Spanish who we had been listening to. The cab driver replied in his best English: the poet Leonard Cohen's album Songs of Love and Hate.

Cohen has come out with a new CD and is featured in The New Yorker this week. Although Joan of Arc and Famous Blue Raincoat are two of my favorites, this video of Le Partisan is the best representation of his atmosphere on YouTube. Enjoy!