I Peed Next to Leonard Cohen

And some bittersweet musings from a ballad-boy

Next week marks the 7th anniversary of Leonard Cohen’s passing. And like the mystery his words assume in our subconscious state, Cohen has been showing up randomly in my head over the past month.

It started with sharing musical brushes-with-greatness tales with a friend. We were trying to one-up each other, her having played gigs alongside legends, and me name-dropping icons I interviewed while producing at MuchMusic (back when they played music). She had Emmylou, I had Sir Macca.

But I eventually won the showdown. The knockout punch? I peed beside Leonard Cohen.

It was June 13, 1999. I was inside L.A.’s ornate Wiltern Theatre, witnessing an unforgettable Tom Waits concert that kicked off his Mule Varriatons tour.

Being Hollywood and all, the crowd was star-studded. But I never would’ve guessed that, when I could no longer hold my beer-bladder, I would penguin-run to the men’s room to relieve myself at the first urinal in sight—right beside Leonard Cohen. The combination of sweet relief with the proximity to the legend was pure euphoria.

I dared not to speak. Pissing with the great poet in an art deco theatre’s restroom was enough to last me a lifetime. Yet, he was the one to break the seal of awkward urinal chit-chat:

“Wonderful show,” Leonard Cohen said. “Tom is one-of-a-kind.”

“Yes! That he is!” I cried, my pee-pee expelling in nervous, jet-like jolts.

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Recently, I was on the community centre treadmill, shuffling through my phone’s playlists. I was seeking a fast-paced tune to push myself harder as I pushed the speed button higher. But there wasn’t a motivating song to be found. I realized l didn’t have any workout songs. All my music was melancholic— just gentle lullabies from Nick Cave, Phoebe Bridgers, Dexter Gordon, Tom Waits, and yes, Leonard Cohen. A lot of Leonard Cohen.

I later had a pow-pow with my pastor, where we got to laughing about the joys of sad songs. He divulged that he’s a sucker for a heartbreak music and I admitted that my partner refers to me as “Ballad Boy.”

Listening to mournful songs isn’t a novel preference. I went to high school with many dead-eyed disciples of Morrissey and Joy Division. I know many of us love a downbeat tune. But the question is, why are we attracted to sad music?

My pastor recommended a best-selling book I originally wrote off because, well, it was a best-selling book. But Susan Cain’s Bittersweet was written with this very question in mind. I devoured the book like it was composed for me, and wouldn’t you know it. The impetus for Cain’s book was her obsession with Leonard Cohen. There he was again, whispering in my ear.

Cain jokingly calls Cohen the “Poet Laureate of Pessimism,” but goes on to demonstrate that our draw to sad music like his isn’t a downer, but a way of honouring that liminal emotion of longing and yearning that’s been around since the beginning of time. She calls this space the bittersweet, and it’s a wellspring for creativity.

This was the validation I needed. Bittersweet is a common and creative feeling just as prominent as happiness or anger, but it has been shrugged-off as the sad-trombone of emotions in our “just-buck-up“ culture. (Take that jocks! I was right all along!)

Cain goes on to explain that bittersweet is not a momentary sensation:

“It’s also a quiet force, a way of being, a storied tradition—as dramatically overlooked as it is brimming with human potential. It’s an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world.”

The bittersweet pocket we take comfort in is, in essence, a longing for home; a deep homesick hum for something unattainable. It’s what the book calls the ultimate point of it all: to embrace the duality of light and dark is to transcend it.

Having spent much of my later life in a nomadic state—packing boxes for countless house moves and bouncing from treatment centres and sober houses—that longing for an elusive home makes sense. Yet, I was attracted to sad music way before all this adult impermanence. Some of us just instinctively lean toward bittersweet.

It was destiny that I took a leak with Leonard Cohen.

Yes, there was a powerful stream in place, but more a stream of consciousness—a passing of a bittersweet torch and an unspoken permission to keep my songs sad.

It was a chance meeting in one of life’s ugly places where inspiration can sometimes flash. A bathroom. Where I was exposed, dick all out, next to the world’s great poet and composer of melancholic music.

And…I know you want to ask. But no, I did not see it. I tried to peek, but no such luck.