Leonard Cohen
The Hydra Connection
A site about Hydra Island has to include a page about Leonard Cohen on HydraDirect. But I have tried to keep the content brief and limited to just the period that he lived here full time from 1960 - 1967.
Arrival
Leonard Cohen walked into a London bank one rainy morning and struck up a conversation with a tanned bank teller who told him about a beautiful, sunny, warm Greek island called Hydra. Based on such flimsy information, Leonard immediately visited a travel agent and booked his ticket.
In the Spring of 1960, this then unremarkable, struggling poet in his mid 20s landed on Hydra and Leonard's life-long connection to Hydra was made.
During this time he bought a house in 1960 with money bequeathed to him by his grandmother. As was common with most traditional 19th Century houses at the time, it was in poor repair with very little plumbing and no electricity. Today, the house is still owned by his family.
In total, Leonard lived full-time on Hydra for seven years from 1960 - 1967. Even though he never took up residence again and in spite of his time-consuming rising stardom, he did occasionally visit Hydra for short breaks until a few years before his death in November 2016.
James Burke LIFE Magazine Photos
Hooray for James Burke, the photographer who also arrived on Hydra in 1960, without him we wouldn't have such a range of photos from this era. He took many photos during his time on the island which were then featured later in the LIFE Magazine when he started work for the publication. His photos included the writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift who Leonard connected with more or less as soon as he arrived. (They gave him a bed in their town house behind the salty well for a time.) As a consequence, Leonard Cohen was photographically immortalized for posterity even though at the time he was just one of the expat crowd rather than the main focus of Burke's camera. Click this link to see a selection of the LIFE Magazine photos. Also included, are photos of a mule trek to the women's monastery Ag. Efpraxia that Leonard went on. You can do the same trek today with Harriet's Hydra Horses.
I highly recommend you read this article by Paul Genoni (Curtin University) and Tanya Dalziell (University of Western Australia) which gives a brilliant insight into daily life on Hydra during the '60s that James Burke's camera didn't capture.
Australians in Aspic: Picturing Charmian Clift and George Johnston’s Hydra Expatriation.
The images above, show the house where George Johnston and Charmian Clift lived, and for a time had Leonard staying with them until he bought his own house. Today the well outside in the square is no longer potable (hence it now is known as the Salty Well) but in the '60s it would have been used by the household. The house had the merit of being in very close staggering proximity to the Xeri Elia (Douskos) Taverna, another favourite haunt of Leonard and his friends.Today, the house is the home of the Pelekanos Family who annually have to trim the huge bougainvillea that was planted in the '60s.
Leonard's Social Life
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![Charmian Clift]()
Charmian Clift
ButtonCharmian Clift
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![George Johnston]()
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![Axel Jensen]()
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![Marianne Ihlen]()
Very few of the Hydriots in the sixties stayed on at school beyond the age of 14 and no languages were taught. So unsurprisingly, the expat community at the time tended to flock together and mix with more widely travelled Athenians, not so much as tourists but more of a gathering of like-minded, creative travellers who spoke the same language.
Ekaterini Paouri one of Hydra's Grand Dames (her picture was reputedly printed on a Drachma note) spent a lot of time on Hydra in the 50s and 60s and she spoke multiple languages. As a bit of a socialite, naturally the expat community would have been of interest to the artistically inclined, gregarious Madame Paouri who was friends with the actresses Melina Mercouri and Sophia Loren.
Paouri came from a wealthy aristocratic Greek family with a home on the island and was friends with many of the Greek and international travellers who visited the island from the 30s. Clift & Johnston were visitors to the Paouri house on the hill above the east side of the port.
Göran Tunström, Anthony Kingsmill,
Demetri Gassoumis, Leonard and other writers & artists on the island at the time were part of this exuberant, promiscuous, sparkly group. They took the 60s slogan 'make love, not war' very seriously. To the Hydriots, who during the 50s & 60s were having a poor time of things, they must have seemed like unruly aliens from another planet.
Their favourite haunts to meet up were never far from Hydra Port. They met most mornings at Katsikas (The Roloi Cafe), ate often at the Xeri Elia (Douskos) taverna and swam at the Spilia Rocks (below the Sunset Restaurant).
Another couple on the scene around this time was the writer
Axel Jensen and his wife Marianne Ihlen
who had arrived in 1958. Leonard socialised with the couple, meeting them at the Katsikas store (now the Roloi Cafe|) on Hydra harbour. The Katsikas store was a general store with a cafe/taverna. It was also positioned right where the boat bringing the mail would arrive. Consequently it was a place where Leonard and his peers would congregate waiting to see if their all important money orders for royalties had arrived. Mr Katsikas must have been overjoyed to have the numerous 'tabs' paid when the eagerly awaited envelopes were received.
There is widespread belief that Axel Jensen's character Lorenzo in the novel Joacim
(1961) is modeled after Leonard, but Jensen also told Cohen that Lorenzo was modeled after the Swedish novelist Göran Tunström.
Axel Jensen and his wife Marianne split up around the time of the publication of 'Joacim' when their son was only 6 months old. They were finally divorced in 1962.
Marianne became Leonard's muse and for a few years they lived together on Hydra.
During the time they lived together, Leonard's house had some electricity installed and a phone line. Marianne is the woman depicted on the back cover of 'Songs from a Room'.
Marianne has related how she helped him out of a depression by handing him his guitar, whereupon he began composing "Bird on the Wire", inspired by a bird sitting on one of Hydra's recently installed phone wires. He finished it in a Hollywood motel. Cohen described "Bird on the Wire" as a simple country song. He first recorded it in 1969 after leaving Hydra in 1967.
In 1967, disappointed with his lack of financial success as a writer, Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer–songwriter.
Marianne left Hydra with her son about the same time and for a couple of years they all lived in Montreal together. But by the early '70s they had parted company and had new partners. However, their friendship continued until their deaths in 2016
Marianne died aged 81 on 28 July 2016, in Oslo. Leonard's last email to her, read:
"Dearest Marianne,
I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, just as yours has too.
I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that. I don’t have to say any more. Safe travels old friend. See you down the road. Endless love and gratitude.
— your Leonard"
Leonard died aged 82 three months later that year on 7 November 2016.
Even though the song, 'So Long, Marianne' was first released by Leonard in 1969, I have included a video of it here as the words seem as appropriate now as they did then.
Leonard Cohen
Books published during the time he lived full-time on Hydra
(1960-1967)
(1960-1967)
Flowers For Hitler
Poems
1964
The Favourite Game
Novel
1963
Beautiful Losers
Novel
1966
The house on Hydra that Leonard bought in 1960 was inherited by his children who regularly visit their Hydra home. Out of respect for Leonard and now his family, I have always taken care to protect their privacy by not posting photos of the house, maps or these days even videos. To my mind it is their private home and is not a tourist destination or landmark. So I will continue my non-forthcoming policy.
There are lots of other places where fans can walk in Leonard's shoes. Take a coffee at the Roloi cafe on the port, sit where Leonard so often played his guitar at Xeri Elia, or take photos swimming at Spilia.
After his death, the Leonard Cohen Forum members raised money to make a memorial on Hydra. After lengthy discussions with the island's administration, a bench was built on the Hydra to Kamini coast road. Sadly, the bench was a compromise between what was wanted by the forum and the building regulations imposed. Personally I think Leonard would have arched an eyebrow and then written a 'funny' song about it! I suspect he would agree with my opinion that his bench can all-to-easily be mistaken for a wheelie ban parking bay.
Someone made a suggestion, that I think he would have liked very much, to have a sculpture of a bird mounted on a 'wire' between the two lamps on the harbour in front of the Roloi Cafe. Personally, I think this would have been a far more appropriate and appreciated memorial. But it wasn't to be.
So instead, as for so many others, when I walk around the island and notice a solitary bird sitting on one of Hydra's phone wires, I always smile and hum 'that song', fondly remember this extraordinarily loved man.
