Anyone born in the year 1950 who grew to fancy themselves as a

The music writer David Hepworth, a chronicler of sound and soul, once wrote: “Anyone born in the year 1950 who grew to fancy themselves as a soulful 18-year-old bought Songs of Leonard Cohen upon its original release in 1968. For many of them, it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.” Within this reflection lies not merely nostalgia for a bygone era, but a revelation about the profound bond between art and the human spirit. Hepworth speaks of music not as entertainment, but as companionship, as a mirror that walks beside a person through the years. His words remind us that when art is true—when it speaks to the soul—it ceases to be a product and becomes a friendship eternal, one that deepens, comforts, and endures through life’s turning seasons.

The meaning of this quote rests upon the sacred connection between artist and listener, between one heart that creates and another that receives. In 1968, Songs of Leonard Cohen entered a world aflame with change—the youth of the time were restless, idealistic, and searching for meaning amid war and revolution. Cohen’s voice, weary and tender, spoke directly to that longing. His songs did not shout like anthems; they whispered like prayers. To those “soulful 18-year-olds,” his words became scripture for the uncertain heart. Hepworth’s phrase, “a lifelong friendship,” captures that transformation—the moment when art ceases to be something outside oneself and becomes part of one’s own inner landscape. To know such music is to carry it within, like a quiet companion who speaks when words fail.

The origin of this sentiment reaches back to humanity’s oldest traditions. From the ancient poets and bards to the wandering minstrels of medieval times, music has always served as a vessel of emotional truth. In every age, there have been songs that capture the heart of a generation—melodies that bind strangers into a shared memory. Just as Homer’s verses once echoed across the fires of Greece, so too did Cohen’s voice echo through dorm rooms and quiet bedrooms in the 1960s. His art became the thread that stitched together countless solitary souls into an invisible fellowship. This is what Hepworth calls friendship—not between two people, but between art and its beholder, between the poet and those who find themselves reflected in his lines.

To understand this more deeply, one may recall the story of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the young readers who saw themselves in his The Sorrows of Young Werther. When Goethe’s novel appeared in 1774, it awakened a generation’s melancholy. Young men dressed like Werther, spoke like him, even ended their lives in imitation of his pain. It was as though a door had been opened to their souls, and they could not close it again. So powerful was that connection that Goethe himself became both revered and burdened by it. Likewise, Leonard Cohen’s listeners did not merely hear his songs—they lived them. They walked with him through loneliness and grace, through the sacred ache of love and the quiet dignity of despair. His voice became a companion to their inner lives, as enduring as the friendship Hepworth describes.

Cohen’s music—and by extension Hepworth’s reflection—also speaks to the maturity of the soul. For those who “fancied themselves soulful,” buying that record was not just an act of taste, but of self-definition. To love Cohen was to declare oneself awake to the deeper layers of existence—to sorrow, to tenderness, to beauty in imperfection. As the years passed and those listeners aged, the music aged with them. What once comforted them in the confusion of youth later comforted them in the solitude of middle age. This is the miracle of art that carries truth within it: it grows as we grow. Its friendship does not fade, because it was never founded on fashion, but on truth, empathy, and the eternal search for meaning.

There is a gentle wisdom in Hepworth’s phrase “lifelong friendship,” for it reminds us that art can love us back. It is not sentient, yet it is alive through our memory, our emotion, our continual return to it. When the world changes, when friends drift away, when we lose the ones we love, there remain songs—voices from the past that remind us who we were, and who we still are. The relationship between a person and their art is one of the few friendships untouched by betrayal or distance. It endures not because it is perfect, but because it meets us exactly where we are, again and again.

The lesson to be drawn from Hepworth’s words is both simple and profound: cherish the art that becomes part of your life’s story. Seek music, poetry, and creation not only for pleasure, but for companionship—for those are the friends that will never leave you. Let art remind you of your youth, your heartbreaks, your awakenings. Revisit the songs and stories that once shaped you, for they will speak anew each time you return. And when you find something that resonates deeply—whether a song, a painting, a book—hold it close, for in it lives a fragment of your own soul.

For as David Hepworth teaches through his reflection on Leonard Cohen, art is not merely made to be admired; it is made to be befriended. It is a dialogue across time—a quiet communion between creator and listener that outlasts both life and fashion. When a song becomes a friend, it joins the eternal chorus of what makes us human: the longing to be understood, and the joy of realizing that somewhere, across the distance of time, we already are.