It would take just fifteen minutes for Bob Dylan to write a hit song featured on Infidels, the veteran musician claimed.
When speaking to Leonard Cohen, Dylan would tell the So Long, Marianne songwriter it took just fifteen minutes to piece together I and I. The song would become a frequent feature of Dylan’s live set in the 1990s, though it has not been performed this century. Cohen would ask Dylan about the song during a conversation where the Hallelujah songwriter lied about how long it took him to write the track. Cohen would tell Dylan it took just “two years” to write Hallelujah, which featured on Various Positions. It would, in fact, take five years. Even then, it would take further rewrites from Cohen to finally be satisfied with the song. It marked a much different writing style to Dylan’s, who says he knocked out I and I in just fifteen minutes.
Cohen said to Dylan he “really liked I and I” and asked how long it had taken to write. “About fifteen minutes,” was Dylan’s reply. Cohen was later asked about the exchange with Dylan and suggested songwriting to him was more “like prayers” than anything else.
He added: “That’s just the way the cards are dealt.” Cohen would have a career resurgence, creating one of his best albums in the months before he died. Cohen would say “less distractions” than usual, given his diagnosis, helped him piece together a worthy final album. Speaking to The New Yorker’s David Remnick just months before his death, Cohen would suggest there was a “tremendous blessing” to how he worked in the darker, final months.
He said: “In a certain sense, this particular predicament is filled with many less distractions than other periods of my life and actually enables me to work with a little more concentration and continuity. The only thing that mitigates against full production is just the condition of my body. There are times I just have to lie down.
“Sometimes, it’s just like ‘you’re losing too much weight now, man.’ You’re dying, but you don’t have to cooperate so enthusiastically with the process. It’s very compassionate at this stage. I mean more than any time in my life, I don’t have that voice in my head saying ‘you’re fucking up!’ That’s a tremendous blessing, really. I took care of business and I’m ready to die.”
Cohen would go on to express his relief at getting You Want It Darker over the line, calling it a chance to put his house in order. He said: “At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order.
“It’s a cliché, but it’s underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.”
A posthumous collection of songs would follow, called Thanks For the Dance. Cohen would suggest there was a “great deal of material that I haven’t sorted out,” with songs referenced by Cohen in his interview with The New Yorker eventually finalised and featured on the posthumous album, which was released in 2019. Cohen would go on to recite an at-the-time unfinished song which he described as “not half bad.” You can listen to his recital below.
