"...we are ugly but we have the music."

A clip from Lian Lunson's documentary/concert film I'm Your Man (2006). The film contains interviews of Leonard Cohen interspersed with live performances (from a tribute concert in Australia) of his songs by other artists. I find these tribute performances of varying interest and quality, but the interviews of Cohen are, in my opinion, priceless.

Here Rufus Wainwright, one of my favorite contemporary singer-songwriters and performers (probably the best around), performs Cohen's elegy to Janis Joplin, "Chelsea Hotel #2" (1974).

I found interesting Cohen's remarks about New York versus Montreal and when, talking about the source of this song, he says:
"It's the only time I've been that indiscreet where I actually said to a journalist somewhere along the line that I had written it about Janis Joplin. You know the devil made me do it. I don't know why I was so ungallant. She wouldn't have minded, no, my mother would have minded."