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I don't see the need to bristle when the rest of that paragraph dispells any notion of an "impoverished poet": "Cohen, whose family was both prominent and culti

I don't see the need to bristle when the rest of that paragraph dispells any notion of an "impoverished poet": "Cohen, whose family was both prominent and cultivated, had an ironical view of himself. He was a bohemian with a cushion whose first purchases in London were an Olivetti typewriter and a blue raincoat at Burberry."

3chelon 10y ago
That is a fair point, well made. I guess the bristling got the better of me. And in those days, Burberry was actually an upper-class brand without the downmarket associations it has these days.
- WaxProlix 10y ago
  Burberry still is in a lot of ways. Chav culture riffs on it have degraded the public image a bit but a Burberry coat probably won't go for less than a couple grand.
bertiewhykovich 10y ago
This blue raincoat? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohk3DP5fMCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohk3DP5fMCg
- taejo 10y ago
  Indeed. From Wikipedia: In the liner notes to 1975's The Best of Leonard Cohen, which includes the song, he mentions that the famous blue raincoat to which he refers actually belonged to him, and not someone else: I had a good raincoat then, a Burberry I got in London in 1959. Elizabeth thought I looked like a spider in it. That was probably why she wouldn't go to Greece with me. It hung more heroically when I took out the lining, and achieved glory when the frayed sleeves were repaired with a little leather. Things were clear. I knew how to dress in those days. It was stolen from Marianne's loft in New York City sometime during the early seventies. I wasn't wearing it very much toward the end.