… when so much of the world is trying to survive war and disaster?  A good friend of mine asked me this today, inviting me to discuss it with her, on a podcast.

Within minutes of reading her question, I randomly came upon this 2 minute BBC radio snippet – of a programme where a human rights lawyer, Philippe Sands,  cited his favourite music – and said Leonard Cohen gave him hope.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04py66b  (recording available til 16 Feb)

Then there was an audio recording of a concert in which Philippe and a friend were enthusiastically shouting out to the performer (they had front row seats), and Leonard responded with a few lines of his poetry, leading into his next song.

So much, packed into 2 minutes 17 secs.  I’m glad I heard it.