Leonard Cohen's Prince Of Asturias Speech - No Overdubbing

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies members of the jury, distinguished laureates, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor to be here before you tonight, perhaps like Grandmaster Riccardo Muti. I'm not used to being in front of an audience without an orchestra behind me, but I'll do my best as a soloist tonight. Last night I stayed up all night wondering what I could say at this August assembly and after I had eaten all the chocolate bars and peanuts in the minibar, I scribbled some words, I don't think. I have to refer to them, obviously, I am deeply moved by the foundation's recognition, but I have come here tonight to express another dimension of gratitude.

I think I can do it in three or four minutes and I'll try it when I'm packing. Los Angeles Coming here I had a feeling of unease because I've always felt a certain ambiguity about a poetry prize. Poetry comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers, so I feel a bit like a charlatan accepting an award for an activity I don't command. In other words, if I knew where good songs came from, I would go there more often. . In the midst of that ordeal of packing my bags I was forced to go and open my guitar.

I have a guitar in a condominium that was made in Spain in the large workshop at number seven grabbing a street a beautiful instrument that I acquired more than 40 years ago I took it out of the case I picked it up it seemed to be full of helium it was so light and I brought it to the face I put my face close to the beautifully designed rose window and inhaled the fragrance of the living wood that you know will never die. I inhaled the fragrance of cedar as fresh as the first day I acquired the guitar and a voice seemed to tell me.

You are an old man and you have not said thank you, you have not returned your gratitude to the land from which this fragrance arose and that is why I come here tonight to thank the land and the soul of this town that has given me so much because I know that just as a identity document is not a man a credit rating is not a country now you know of my deep Association and Brotherhood with the poet Federico García Lorca I could say that when I was young a teenager and I was hungry for a voice I studied the English poets and knew them well his work and I copied his styles but I didn't find a voice, it was only when I read Lorca's works even in translation that I understood that there was a voice, that's not it.

I copied his voice I wouldn't dare but he gave me permission to find a voice to locate a voice that is to locate a self a self that is not fixed a self that fights for its own existence and as I grew I understood those instructions it came with this voice what were these instructions the instructions were never to lament casually and if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awakens us all it must be done within the strict limits of dignity and beauty and that is why I had a voice but I did not have an instrument I didn't have a song and now I'm going to tell you very briefly a story of how I got my song because I was an indifferent guitarist I played the chords I only knew a few of them I sat with my friends from college drinking and singing popular songs of the time, but Never in a thousand years did I consider myself a musician or a singer.

One day in the early '60s, I was visiting my mother's house in Montreal, the houses. Next to a park and in the park there is a tennis court where many people come to see the beautiful young tennis players enjoying their sport. I went back to this park that I knew from my childhood and there was a young man playing a guitar. He was playing a flamenco guitar and he was surrounded by two or three girls and boys who were listening to him. I loved the way he played. There was something about the way he played that captured me.

It was the way I wanted to play and I knew I could never play and I sat there with the other listeners for a few moments and when there was silence and a proper silence I asked him if he would give me guitar lessons, he was a young man from Spain and we could only communicate in my broken French in his broken France he didn't speak English and agreed to give me guitar lessons. I pointed out my mother's house that could be seen from the tennis court and we made an appointment, settled the price and he came to my mother's house. house the next day and he said let me hear you play something I tried to play something he said you don't know how to play right?

I told him no, I don't really know how to play he said first of all let me tune your guitar it's out of tune so he took the guitar and tuned it and said it's not a bad guitar, it wasn't the Conte but it wasn't a bad guitar so he told me He returned it and told me that now I could play. I don't play any better, he said let me show you some chords and he picked up the guitar and produced a sound from that guitar that he had never heard before and he played a sequence of chords with a tremolo and said now you do it. he said that he said about the question I can't do it he said let me put your fingers on the frets and he put my fingers on the frets and said now now play it was a disaster he said I'll come back tomorrow he tomorrow I'll come back he put my hands on the guitar he put it on me the lap in the appropriate way and and I started again with those six strings six chord progressions to which many many flamenco songs obey that day I was a little better the third day it improved a little it improved, but now I knew the chords and I knew that, although I couldn't coordinate my fingers with my thumb to produce the correct tremolo pattern, I knew the pitch, I knew them very, very well by now, the next day he didn't.

Come on, he didn't come, I had the number of his boarding house in Montreal, I called to find out why he had missed the appointment and they told me that he had taken his life, that he had committed suicide, I didn't know anything about the man. I didn't know what part of Spain he came from I didn't know why he came to Montreal I didn't know why he stayed there I didn't know why he showed up on that tennis court I didn't know why he took his life I was I'm deeply saddened, of course, but now I reveal to you something that I have never spoken about in public: it was those six chords, it was that guitar pattern, it has been the basis of all my songs and all my music, so now you will begin to understand the dimensions of the gratitude that I have for this country everything that you have found favorable in my work comes from this place everything that you have found favorable and my songs in my poems are inspired by this land so I thank you very much for the warm hospitality that I have shown my work because it is really yours and you have allowed me to affix my signature at the bottom of the page.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.