For the first time in fourteen years, Leonard Cohen is on tour. The kickoff was in Fredericton, Canada, on May 11.

How many more tours could he possibly have in him? The guy is 74, a bit long in the tooth for a singer on the road. Although he’s very trim and dapper, he makes the Rolling Stones seem young (well, except for Keith Richards, who would make a corpse seem young).

Cohen’s an acquired taste that many people never acquire, but although he’s one of my all time favorites, I’ve never been to a live performance. I’d love to, but unless I hie myself to Europe for one of his gigs it looks like I’ll miss him this time.

But at least we now have You Tube and instant amateur video recordings, accessible to all despite somewhat shaky technical quality. So I’m posting this May 11 rendition of his classic “Hallelujah” (the song starts around second 22).

I’m not sure what that little jerky shuffle sidestep is all about; I don’t remember that habit from previous Cohen videos. And Leonard, lose the fedora, I beg of you.

But as I watched him I thought of Yeats’ words in “Sailing to Byzantium” and decided that here’s an example of soul clapping its hands and singing very loudly indeed:

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress…

Compare and contrast the following—isn’t film, and time, wonderful? We have here a documentary about Cohen made back in those ancient times (the early 60s) when he was “just” a poet and not yet a singer/songwriter. From the first few minutes of this clip it’s clear he could also have been a standup comic. It’s also clear that in his youth he was a ringer for Dustin Hoffman, with more than a little Al Pacino thrown in (a combination that happens to suit me). There’s also a bit of unique Cohen cheesecake when he gets up in a hotel room in his underwear, and then we see him shaving barechested. As skinny then as now, and even as a young man a bit stooped, his charm is clearly manifest (patience, please; it doesn’t really start till around second 43).

[NOTE: If you want a ton of links to You Tube videos of the 2008 concert tour so far, go here.]