On Aug. 29, 2011, Emmanuel Kelly caused a sensation on the Australian TV reality music competition "The X Factor" when he gave a compelling performance of John Lennon's "Imagine."[1]  --  One of the judges, the Irish singer Ronan Keating, said: "I don't think I've ever, ever been moved as much as I was by that performance."  --  One of the YouTube postings of the video has already had more than 2 million hits....

Twelve lines, freely translated below and followed by the original verses from Victor Hugo's La Pitié suprême, evoke the situation of Bashar al-Assad.[1] ...

The link below to a clip of the 2008 concert performance in London of "Everybody Knows" shows a 73-year-old Leonard Cohen sporting a rakishly tilted black fedora singing with a rare courtliness in a trademark gravelly voice that has been compared to a velvet garrote or the warm feeling that comes from drinking good whisky.[1]  --  Cohen and Sharon Robinson wrote this dark prophetic anthem of the transition to the post-globalization market-state in the era of AIDS toward the end of the Reagan era.  --  "Everybody Knows" was first released as the third track on Cohen's 1988 "I'm Your Man" album.  --  Also posted below:  a clip of his performance at the same concert of "Tower of Song," at the end of which he revealed "the answer to the mysteries" at "the very core of things."[2] ...