Crippled Critic Interview: Marc Cohn

Today marks my first celebrity interview, with singer-songwriter Marc Cohn. His new album is "Careful What You Dream: Lost Songs and Rarities." The album is entirely comprised of outtakes from his self-titled debut. I chose some highlights to discuss with him: "Maestro", and "Street of Windows" "Maestro" is about George Zell, the conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, who lived next-door to Cohn in his youth, and had a crush upon both Cohn's mother and step-mother, so he would invite the family to use his box-seats. "Street of Windows" takes its title from a line in Gabriel García Márquez's Magical Realist novel, "Love in the Time of Cholera" I also gained some insight into one of my favorite Cohn songs, "Walking in Memphis," which was incited by James Taylor's advice to travel for inspiration.

I often find myself using religious language to describe the experience of watching concerts, and I owe the habit at least partially to my favorite lyric from "Walking in Memphis":

"Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
And she said
'Tell me are you a Christian, child?'
And I said 'Ma'am I am tonight' "

I asked Mr. Cohn if performing is akin to a religious experience, if the feeling of transcendence is the same from his side of the stage. He said that it was, even going so far as to say that music has healed him from pain and illness. That has happened to me many times.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Marc Cohn, and I hope that interviews become a regular feature of this website. I will be reviewing his upcoming performance at The Aladdin Theater on May 4th.