Interview: Perla Batalla about Leonard Cohen

DISA for me because I didn't do it in my family was the sexism that my father did believe that we were the women that my sister and I were. We were supposed to stay at home until we got married, my brothers could do whatever they wanted, but that was it, but I never thought he was right, in fact I always knew he was very wrong, so half-caste to me just means a person of mixed blood. and we were very mixed in my family with the Argentine blood of my mother and the German and the Jewish and the Afro-Mexican blood of my father we were very mixed and my desire in this cycle of songs was to bring all that together in the body of a strong woman who definitely I had opinions about that and that I never, I mean, I don't come from a privileged family.

Sometimes I had to protect myself from my own family and leaving it and being independent was my goal when I was a child and that's it. It is not very common for a Mexican-American woman. What I do know is that in Leonard's relationships with women, the friendships are more equal and back and forth, but I don't know about it with his lovers and with other people who were closer, I think. that Leonard's domain was in his work nothing, nothing and no one could interfere with his work, he was totally dedicated to Leonard's song that I love because it explains who he is in a very clear way.

I feel like I came this far because of beauty. I came so far for beauty I left so many things behind my patients and my family my unsigned masterpiece and then she goes on to say what is her sense of humor I thought I would be rewarded for such a lonely choice and surely she would respond to such a desperate voice like, of course women are going to come to me and one time he told me something very funny, he said honey, I became a poet for women and I became a rock star for more women and of course that's just a joke, I mean, it really was.

He was a poet and a composer and that's what he was, he sacrificed everything for his work and that's why we still talk about him and that's why we will continue to talk about him for years and years like the Shakespeare that I read. I read a Shakespeare sonnet the other day and I was crying and I said how long has this guy been here, you know, and we're still crying over his writing. That's how long it will be when Leonard is very sick. We had a conversation in the middle of the night texting and he was really afraid that his music would disappear and I would forget how he put it into words, but I said Leonard, I'm going to sing this music until I die and you know, I and and I'm not, I'm not KD Lang, I'm not Jackson Browne, I'm not like any of these people, but what I do have that they don't have is an intimacy with Leonard and a friendship where we adored them. to each other and I conveyed it in these songs.

I adored it and I adore this job. I mean, he's a part of me, he runs through my veins and as long as he runs through my veins, you'll hear me sing these. songs and no one tells me, oh, when are you going to sing?, someone else wouldn't dare tell me that and I learned a song that I really wanted to do from Leonard's last record. You want it darker because there's something about that song on this one. The record really captured for me a depth more than an honesty about the moment like you're talking about the moment when Leonard realizes that he has to go, you know, with Pinay Neha naina, you know I'm ready, my lord, and he was. being at his house and he says honey, what do you think about these voices, what should we do here and he explains to me what you know, his and Amy's babysitter means you know I'm here and I was.

I was very excited to be able to sing that song because I feel like I knew I was with him when I was writing and it was very important to him that song of all the songs on that particular record, it was very important. For him, my band, who are all musicians from Barcelona, ​​were going through the song and I wasn't expecting to do the choral parts at all. I thought, let's just sing the song, just because I had a vision of how I wanted to. to do it and they were great in that vision and then we started singing the choral parts together, the guys and I and it's beautiful, I loved it, so it's going to be great, yeah, very powerful.

I never realized how green his eyes were. that photo anyway there is that kitchen that I love so much just that that wallpaper looks very old I think he didn't have it later he was very fond of his house and that is his backyard and look it is a very simple house there is nothing luxurious about it house and after he passed a good friend of his hazelnut and I sat here in his backyard there was a table here and we had tea and we were very quiet to see if we could feel Leonard we could feel him coming from below C from above. you