What Makes the Concerts So Potent?

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Cohan is playing for people who might be dead within a few hours. He knows that, and that makes the concerts so potent. Theyre 25 people, sometimes, sitting around the back of a truck with some other truck's lights shining on em. And it is incredibly informal. Most of the time. There's no concert venus for this because it's literally at the base a were where people are going to be attacked.

In October 1973, an unhappy Leonard Cohen was listening to the radio on his Greek island home when he heard that Israel was at war. He headed to Tel Aviv, exchanging a personal and creative crisis for a national one. Absent a plan and even a guitar, Cohen wound up serenading Israeli soldiers at the front. Journalist Matti Friedman talks about his book Who by Fire with EconTalk host Russ Roberts and explains how a songwriter and a nation were transformed in the crucible of war.