The tiny island in the Argosaronikos was the musician and poet’s spiritual and physical home in his 20s, and many places here are still tied to his presence – a source of pride for the local inhabitants, who are gearing up to honor him.
The municipality of the island of Hydra will honour Leonard Cohen on Saturday and Sunday with a series of events.
The street outside the house the great singer, performer and poet lived in will be named Leonard Cohen Street while a stone seat dedicated to his memory will be placed, donation of the International Forum of the artists’ fans on Hydra, outside his house.
A concert dedicated to Leonard Cohen who died in 2016 (1934-2016) will take place at Hydra’s port on Saturday.
In March of 1960 London was cold and wet. One day Leonard Cohen, then a young unknown Canadian poet was returning to his apartment from a visit to the dentist when London decided to turn on one of those downpours that only London can. Seeking shelter from the rain he walked into a branch of the Bank of Greece. There he began chatting to a teller who told him about Greece, and sunshine, and beaches. This led to him arriving in Piraeus, Greece where he boarded a steamer for Hydra, an island 4 hours (1 hour now) out of Piraeus. There he discovered a Bohemian community headed by the Australian writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift. George and Charmian invited Leonard to stay in their spare room until he rented his own house.
In an interview for ABC radio (Australia) in March 1980. Leonard Cohen said: “I knew George Johnston and his wife Charmian Clift very well because I lived in Greece in those days on the same island… I guess it was from 60 to maybe 65 on Hydra. The Johnstons were there. There were just a few foreigners there in those days. The Johnstons were central figures. They were older. They were doing what we all wanted to do which was to write and to make a living out of writing. They were very wonderful, colourful, hospitable people. They helped me settle in. They gave me a table and chair and bed and really helped me out. I heard a lot about Australia. You’re on a little Greek island and there’s nothing much to do but sit around and talk. George was a magnificent talker. He used to talk about his life here. He was Australian, there’s no question about it. Now that I’ve come here, I see just how Australian he was. I don’t know if I can characterize what an Australian is, but I know one when I meet one.”
By the port, Rolo Cafe, once known as the kafenion O Katsikas, is where Cohen and a generation of artists and bohemians hung out. It is also where his first concert took place – just Cohen with his guitar and only a few friends in the audience, round the back of the shop.
In September of 1960, just six days after his 26th birthday, Cohen bought the 19th-century stone house with $1,500 from his grandmother’s legacy. He lived there for seven years, even meeting a romantic partner, Marianne Jensen, who inspired countless songs, including So Long, Marianne on his debut album. He eventually left to pursue a music career in Nashville and other arts around the world -but he always returned to Hydra, escaping there during the summers.
Cohen wrote the poem Days of Kindness about his girlfriend and muse Marianne Ihlen, and their years spent here. A few streets up you can spot the terrace that he describes, and the scenery familiar to those who hang around after all the tourists have gone – the deep blue sky and sea with fog rising from it.
In an interview with Kari Hesthamar for Norwegian Radio, Cohen described how he resided in the house with little money and simple pleasures: “My house looked beautiful, and it looks exactly the same as it always did. It doesn’t have a great view. It’s a big house full of little rooms…Most things in that house were given to me by people who were moving up and could afford better.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPUu-rMpWA
The three-story whitewashed house, with five small rooms, stands just a ten-minute walk away from the Aegean Sea. When Cohen first moved there, the building didn’t have electricity, plumbing, or running water. In fact, the entire island didn’t have consistent electricity; the streets were so pristine that there weren’t any wires strung between them.
When the telephone poles finally appeared, so did the birds, inspiring Cohen to write Bird on the Wire.
Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir,
I have tried in my way to be free.
Cohen eventually finished the song in a motel on Sunset Boulevard in 1969.