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Why should festivals be places
where all this happens, by the way?

- Well, it's good place as any, really.
- It's like a pilgrimage, in a way.

It's like going to Bethlehem.

- Go to the Isle of Wight.
- Why's it like going to Bethlehem?

Well, I mean, they all go to see
where little baby Jesus came to be

- and we all go to see Leonard Cohen.
- Pink Floyd.

We've come to see Leonard Cohen.

I think Leonard is probably
the best performer in the world.

I never saw anybody that did what he did.

He brought poetry into...
into music.

I think it was about four
o'clock in the morning.

They went in and woke him up...

in his trailer.

And he took a long time
to get out to the stage

and everybody had been sitting there
in the filth,

in their own squalor for...
half a million people there,

...for three, well, five days.

And Leonard finally came out of his trailer

and he was wearing his pajamas.

God bless Leonard Cohen, yes,
and his muse

and I guess I feel
I can borrow his muse once in a while.

Because he started me out writing

and I was the first one to sing his song.

The audience, huge or small...

if they're listening
then they're getting something very rare.

An unavoidable crisis of the heart
and the mind.

...600,000, I took Leonard,
I said we can play the Isle of Wight

and really do some stuff
and really have some fun...

...and that's why we went.

I got all the musicians for him.

It was the best times in the world.

They were this...
All the time they were this.

They looked at you and didn't look down to
the ground or up there or something like that,

they looked at you and
they sang beautifully.

And I couldn't find anybody
any better than them.

And I told him I had a great keyboard
player and he said no, he wanted me to go.

I said
"I can't play the goddamn keyboard, man.

"Don't ruin your band
with me pounding around on the piano!"

He said "Well, I won't go".

I said, "Well, hell, I'm
not gonna miss that".

Greetings.

Greetings.

When I was seven years old

my father used to take me to the circus.

He had a black mustache and a great vest

and a pansy in his lapel.

And he liked the circus better than I did.

But there was one thing at the circus
that happened

that I always used to wait for.

I don't want to impose on you,
this isn't like a "Sing along with Mitch".

But there was one moment
when a man would stand up

and he would say
"Would everybody light a match?"

So we can locate one another.

And could I ask you,

each person, to light a match

so that I could see where you all are?

Could each of you light a match?

So that you'll sparkle like fireflies
each at your different heights.

I would love to see those matches flare.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Now I know that you know
why you're lighting them.

Lot of people without matches.

It's good to be here alone
in front of 600,000 people.

It's a large nation but it's still weak.

Still very weak.

Needs to get a lot stronger before it...

before it can claim a right to land.

I wrote this in a peeling room
in the Chelsea Hotel

before I was rich and famous
and they gave me well-painted rooms.

I was coming off of amphetamine

and I was pursuing a blonde lady

whom I met in a Nazi poster.

And I was doing many things
to attract her attention.

I was lighting wax candles
in the form of men and women.

I was marrying the smoke
of two cones of sandalwood.

Oh, we're sorely in need of matches.

I never have known...

why they didn't just hoot him off the stage
like they did with a lot of people.

Especially me, you know?

Hey, man...

we're gonna do two more
in spite of anything except rifle fire.

Then we'll split.

I think they're gonna shoot us.

I can only think
that he was such an honest performer,

and didn't... didn't scramble
after anybody's attention, you know.

He was... He took his time getting
out there, he took his time tuning up,

and he wasn't intimidated by a half million
people who had been very ugly.

They don't want these
cats to have fun, man!

Joke! They want their pockets empty.
"Right, empty your pockets, man.

"Get down there and give them
the fucking bread. That's why you're here."

We're not here for that. We're here so we
can sit up on that hill and fucking groove.

We put this festival on, you bastards,
with a lot of love!

We worked for one year for you pigs!

And you wanna break our walls down?
And you wanna destroy?

Well, you go to Hell!

And that was a losing cause,

to try to extract money out of people

and build a fence to keep 'em out,

and they can hear the music
on the other side of the fence.

Not gonna do that. That'll never work.

We could lose £50,000 tonight quite easily.

We got people who are
gonna be working all night tonight.

Just sort of building the wall.
We got dozens of security men up there.

That's been going on since time began.

Then Jesus kicked the moneylenders
out of the market,

and they became managers
and record executives.

They've surrounded the island.

One of these days
we're gonna have this land for our own.

We're not strong enough yet.

You can't fool yourselves.

Let's sing another song, boys.

This one has grown old and bitter.

It's not that I wanna be coy standing out here,
you know, but I know that it's late and...

I don't know,
maybe this is good music to make love to.

They say in Montreal
that Suzanne is the story of their city.

And that they get that feeling
of other worldliness from Suzanne.

And I get that feeling
very strongly from this song

that it's in another dimension entirely.

And I also put him on stage
the first time he ever performed in public.

Leonard went out on the stage,
perfectly confident,

after shaking a lot backstage,
and he began to sing Suzanne.

And he got about halfway through it

and he stopped
and turned and walked off stage.

And I said, I took his arm
and I said, "Leonard, it's OK."

I said, "I'll go back on stage with you,
we'll finish the song together", which we did.

He... after that, of course,
became a spectacular performer.

I'd like to dedicate this song to Joan Baez
and the work that she's doing.

Yes, you can get things
by breaking windows.

You can get broken windows.
Yes, you can get things by killing people.

You can get dead people.

But can you get a world where there's
brotherhood, decency, kindness, love,

where we have a chance of surviving
for more than 20 years?

No, you cannot get that by shooting people.

I was worried enough that that's why
I offered to step in before Jimi Hendrix.

Because I knew my music was a
little more difficult to burn fences down.

We have a fire on stage. If there's
any firemen anywhere in the area,

that could help us put the fire out
as soon as possible...

I think there was some discussion
or I wouldn't have known about

the fire and the discontent
and protests, etcetera.

I know that when I went on stage,
I was ready.

This is slightly hazardous here.

But, anyway, it was a hard act to follow.
You gotta admit that.

Stage burning down and...

When people think
that a song has to make sense,

Leonard would prove otherwise.

It doesn't necessarily make sense at all.

It's just coming from so deep inside of him

that it somehow or other
touches deep inside of other people.

I'm not sure how that works,
but I know that it works.

I mean music alone can't change the world.

Changing the world without music
would be pretty tedious to me.

It is, in fact, the art
that does cross just about any border.

It was a whole festival with 600,000 people
and he took it over and captured it.

The last night there, we captured it.

It was the air. It was an encampment.

With matches and fire and...

...all that stuff that he did.

My guitar has been heisted.

Yeah, the song about Nancy.
That's a good idea.

I want to sing this song for Nancy.

It was in 1961,

she went into the bathroom and blew
her head off with her brother's shotgun.

And in those days there was
not this kind of horizontal support

and she was right where all of you are now

but there was no one else around
to light their matches.

Good night, friends, and thank you.

Really, thank you.

Really, thank you.