No cheap thrills on Cohen’s island

THE Greek island of Hydra has a special place in the hearts of Leonard Cohen fans. We didn’t know it at the time, but the blond woman sitting at the typewriter on the back of the sleeve of his second album, Songs from a Room, was Marianne Ihlen — yes, that Marianne.
Their life-long relationship began in the port of that sun-drenched island around 1960 when, both refugees from Northern snows, they met at a grocery store-taverna.
Tourism had yet to come to Hydra in those now far-off seeming days, and the islanders lived a simple life of fishing and boat-building.
Any expatriate could live comfortably on $1,000 a year.
Alongside the Greek natives there lived a small colony of artists and bohemians who came to write, draw, paint, sculpt and enjoy what seemed to them the good life of drugs, alcohol and “free love”.
As viewers of the recent film Marianne and Leonard — Words of Love now know, there were many casualties of that life, not the least of them Marianne’s son Axel, who has spent most of his adult years in a mental institution.

Read the full feature in this week's edition of The Tuam Herald