On Duende

Leonard Cohen and Francisco Garcia Lorca and Hallelujah

I recently had the treat of seeing HALLELUJAH: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song. It was a treat not just because it was about one of my artistic heroes, but because it was a movie about the creation and the odd life of one of his songs, “Hallelujah.”

As I watched the movie, I kept thinking of how Cohen created with duende. I say the word duende because Cohen’s artistic hero, Frederico Garcia Lorca, was obsessed with duende because he believed duende is the ineffable something beyond voice and style that defines the most resonant art.

In his famous essay on duende, Lorca offered all sorts of meanings for the “mysterious force” of duende:

He recounts what an old guitar master told him:

“The duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet.” Meaning, it’s not a question of skill, but of a style that’s truly alive, Lorca said, meaning, it’s in the veins: meaning, it’s of the most ancient culture of immediate creation.

Duende is the very spirit of the earth. It goes beyond any inspiration from the muse. It has “to be roused from the furthest habitations of the blood,” says Lorca.

Duende is not form, but “the marrow of form,” Lorca…