Gabriel Moreno makes a song of Leonard Cohen's unpublished lyrics

By Elena Scialtiel
Composer, singer-songwriter, bluesman, spoken-word maestro, Gibraltar Cultural Ambassador and Quivering Poet Gabriel Moreno is set to record I've Never Loved Before, the original tune he purposely composed for unpublished Leonard Cohen lyrics.

The piece, in true Leonard Cohen spirit, was premiered last Friday in BOOKgem during the launch of Moreno's anthology simply titled Gibraltar.

Cohen’s unknown lyrics had come to the attention of an artist friend of Gabriel’s and commissioned him to compose the guitar riffs, knowing how highly Gabriel regards Cohen’s legacy and how he draws inspiration from it – and him.

The song is a harrowing declaration of love, promising someone or something they will be the singer’s first and last love since he’s “never loved before”, perhaps a pledge of allegiance to music and poetry, in a rhythm reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, because of its repetition of the word “before”, akin to the “nevermore” in Poe’s work.

The soirée, organised by Gibraltar Cultural Services and presented by Davina Barbara, was part of an international tour that drove and will drive Gabriel and his editor, publisher, and translator Rafael Peñas Cruz to Cadiz, Malaga, Seville, Barcelona and beyond.

It attracted a cheery crowd of fans and like-minded poets and featured excerpts from the book, Gibraltar, performed by Gabriel on guitar and translations read by Rafael.

Special guests, fans and fellow artists Rebecca Calderon, Naomi Duarte and Giordano Durante recited a poem each.

The peculiarity of this collection is that every poem carries its corresponding Spanish translation by Barcelona-born and long-time London resident Rafael, who actually manages to concoct artistically notable versions in their own right.

And when Gabriel’s poem mixes English and Spanish, Rafael mirrors the counterparts without forsaking the Llanito speech pattern and its cultural identity.

Giordano Durante was the sceptic “instigator” of the book’s sonnets section: Giordano the purist and Gabriel the experimenter bet it would be impossible to weave a classic sonnet in the Llanito vernacular and Gabriel set sail to prove him wrong, breezily jotting down some hundred and fifty sonnets, of which he skimmed the top twenty-five for publication.

Gabriel opens his heart about his relationship with his father in intimate and sorrowful verses, then he recalls the heydays of tobacco smuggling with a sonnet titled Marlboro Man, a nod to novelist M.G. Sanchez, and goes on reminiscing about teenage summers spent wooing ‘guiri’ girls holidaying on the Rock for furtive kisses and cheeky fondling; he doesn’t forsake one of his most congenial romantic heroes, Lord Byron, who gets his fifteen minutes of fame in this polyhedral cross-cultural opus with serendipitous savoir-faire.

As the professional performer he is, Gabriel entertained his audience with an emotional recital that struck so many chords. Even more so the following night, in a sold-out event at El Kasbah, with guest artists and musicians of an international calibre.