Gorupdebesanez · CC BY-SA 3.0

Published two novels and four books of poetry before picking up a guitar at thirty-three, which is why the songs scan. Hallelujah was a commercial failure on release and is now sung at everything; Suzanne, Famous Blue Raincoat and You Want It Darker span half a century of writing about desire and God without ever separating the two. A Montreal Jew from a family of synagogue presidents who also spent five years as an ordained Buddhist monk, he saw no contradiction.