'He had a line for every moment of your life': Moses Znaimer on Leonard Cohen

Moses Znaimer, head of ZoomerMedia and co-creator of MuchMusic, first met Leonard Cohen when they were both students of the great Canadian poet, Irving Layton in the late '50s. 

Znaimer admits to thinking Cohen's voice was "whiny" when he first heard it but in retrospect, admits: "I didn't, at that moment, understand just how profound that insight was, that he was going to marry poetry to popular music." 

The two stayed in touch throughout the years and although they didn't see each other that frequently in the last few years, Znaimer will always have a perfect image of Cohen forever etched in his mind. 

"He liked to portray himself as a lazy bastard in a suit and that was his uniform," he says. "But the most searing image that I have is possibly one of my own invention: it's a man in a room, a bare room, trying to write the perfect song."