Leonard
Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC (born September
21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a poet,
novelist, and singer-songwriter. His musical career has
largely overshadowed his prior work as a poet and
novelist, although he has continued to publish poetry
sporadically after his breakthrough in the music industry.
Musically, Cohen's early songs are based in folk music,
both for melodies and instrumentation, but, beginning in
the 1970s, his work shows the influence of various types
of popular music and cabaret music. Since the 1980s he
typically sings in a deep bass register, with
synthesizers and female backing vocals.
Cohen's songs are often emotionally heavy and lyrically
complex, owing more to the metaphoric word play of poetry
than to the conventions of song craft. His work often
explores the themes of religion, isolation, and complex
interpersonal relationships.
Cohen's music has become very influential on other singer-songwriters,
and more than a thousand cover versions of his work have
been recorded. He is also popular in his native land,
having been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame
and awarded the Order of Canada, the nation's highest
civilian honor.
Biography
Early life
Cohen was born to a middle-class Jewish family in 1934 in
Montreal, Quebec. He grew up in Westmount on Montreal
island. His father, who owned a substantial Montreal
clothing store, died when Leonard was nine years old.
They made a proud claim to descent from the priestly
Kohanim: "I had a very Messianic childhood," he
told Richard Goldstein in 1967, "I was told I was a
descendant of Aaron, the high priest." As a teenager
he learned to play the guitar and formed a country-folk
group called the Buckskin Boys. His father's will
provided Leonard with modest trust income, sufficient to
allow him to pursue his literary ambitions without
risking economic ruin.
Cohen idealized his father and his death threw him into a
deep depression;as he grew up he began taking the then
legal drug "LSD" as a treatment. Cohen believes
that the drug opened his awareness to the hypocrisy and
self delusion that are commmon traits of humanity and
common themes in his songs.
Development as a poet
In 1951, Cohen enrolled at McGill University, where he
was president of the McGill Debating Union and pursued a
career as a poet. His first poetry book, Let Us
Compare Mythologies (1956), was published while he
was an undergraduate. The Spice-Box of Earth (1961)
made him well-known in poetry circles, especially in his
native Canada.
Cohen applied a strong work ethic to his early and keen
literary ambitions. He wrote poetry and fiction through
much of the 1960s, and preferred even as a young man to
live in quasi-reclusive circumstances. After moving to
Hydra, a Greek island, Cohen published the poetry
collection Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the
novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful
Losers (1966). The Favourite Game is an
autobiographical bildungsroman about a young man finding
his identity in writing. In contrast, Beautiful
Losers can be considered as an 'anti-bildungsroman'
since it—in an early postmodern fashion—deconstructs
the identity of the main characters by combining the
sacred and the profane, religion and sexuality in a rich,
lyrical language. Reflecting Cohen's Québécois roots,
but perhaps unusually for someone from a Jewish
background, a secondary plot in Beautiful Losers
concerns Tekakwitha, the Roman Catholic Iroquois mystic. Beautiful
Losers, greeted initially with shock by Canadian
reviewers (who berated it for its explicit sexual content),
is today considered by many critics to be among the
finest literary novels of the 1960s. For a good early
survey of Cohen's written work, see Leonard Cohen by
Steven Scobie (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1978).
Music
In 1967, Cohen relocated to the United States to pursue a
career as a folk singer-songwriter. His song "Suzanne"
became a hit for Judy Collins, and after performing at a
few folk festivals, Cohen was discovered by John H.
Hammond, the same Columbia Records representative who
discovered Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, among others.
The sound of Cohen's first album Songs of Leonard
Cohen (1967) was much too downtrodden to be a
commercial success but was widely acclaimed by folk music
buffs and by Cohen's peers. He followed up with Songs
from a Room (1969) (featuring the oft-covered "Bird
on the Wire"), Songs of Love and Hate (1971),
and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His
recorded sound became a bit more accessible through the
use of background vocalists.
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cohen toured
the United States, Canada and Europe. In 1973, Cohen
toured Israel and performed at army bases during the Yom
Kippur War. Beginning around 1974, his collaboration with
pianist/arranger John Lissauer created a live sound that
was almost universally praised by the critics, but never
really captured on record. During his time, Cohen often
toured with Jennifer Warnes as a back-up singer. Warnes
would become a fixture on Cohen's future albums and would
even record an album of Cohen songs in 1987, Famous
Blue Raincoat.
In 1977, Cohen released an album called Death of a
Ladies' Man (note the plural possessive case; one
year later in 1978, Cohen released a volume of poetry
with the coyly revised title, Death of a Lady's Man).
The album was produced by Phil Spector, well known as the
inventor of the "wall of sound" technique, in
which pop music is backed with thick layers of
instrumentation—an approach much different from
Cohen's usually minimalistic instrumentation. The
recording of the album was a complete fiasco. Spector
reportedly mixed the album in secret studio sessions and
Cohen said that Spector once threatened him at gunpoint.
The end result was a sound critics considered gaudy and
ostentatious and Cohen's songs were considered some of
his weakest as well. In 1979, Cohen returned with the
more traditional Recent Songs.
In 1984, Cohen released Various Positions,
featuring the oft-covered "Hallelujah," but
Columbia declined to release the album in the United
States, where Cohen's popularity had declined in recent
years. (Throughout his career, Cohen's music has sold
better in Europe and Canada than in the U.S.—he once
satirically expressed how touched he is at the modesty
the American company has shown in promoting his records.)
In 1986 he made a guest appearance in an episode of the
TV series Miami Vice.
In 1987, Jennifer Warnes' tribute album Famous Blue
Raincoat helped restore Cohen's career in the U.S.,
and the following year he released I'm Your Man,
which marked a drastic change in his music. Synthesizers
ruled the album, although in a much more subdued manner
than on Death of a Ladies' Man, and Cohen's
lyrics included more social commentary and dark humour.
The album was Cohen's most acclaimed and popular since Songs
of Leonard Cohen, and "First We Take Manhattan"
and the title song became two of his most popular songs.
The use of the album track "Everybody Knows" in
the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume helped to
expose Cohen's music to a younger audience.
He followed with another acclaimed album, The Future,
in 1992. The Future showed a very bitter, almost
misanthropic view of life. The grim, socially detached
notes found in songs like "First We Take Manhattan"
became an almost explicit cry of hatred expressed in
songs like "Waiting for the Miracle," "The
Future" and others. Cohen always maintained a
cynical, outsider-like view of the world, which was
expressed here in its extreme.
In 1994, following a tour to promote The Future,
Cohen retreated to the Mount Baldy Zen Center near Los
Angeles, beginning what would become five years of
seclusion at the center. In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a
Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and took the Dharma name Jikan,
meaning silent one. He left Mount Baldy in 1999.
Recent activity
In 2001, Cohen returned to music with Ten New Songs,
featuring a heavy influence from producer and co-composer
Sharon Robinson. With Ten New Songs, Cohen
detached himself from the dark, misanthropic themes of The
Future and adopted an approach of reconciliation
with the world. The album's recurring themes and cohesive
musical style (something absent from Cohen's albums since
"Songs from a Room") helped maintain this
feeling, as if Cohen's years in seclusion made him accept
this world that fell from grace with him. In October 2004,
he released a follow-up named Dear Heather.
Cohen has been under new management since April 2005. He
recently wrote and produced an album (Blue Alert) for
former-background singer and jazz chanteuse Anjani Thomas
(scheduled to first quarter of 2006). Cohen's new book of
poetry and drawings (Book of Longing) will also be
published in September 2006, and his new album is slated
for mid-2006 with subsequent touring.
This recent activity has been necessary—Cohen states—because
his financial resources, including the publishing rights
to his songs, reportedly have been gutted, leading Cohen
to file suit against his longtime former manager, Kelley
Lynch, for gross misappropriation of funds. Cohen states
that he has been deprived of over 5 million USD placed in
a fund for his retirement, leaving only $150,000. Cohen
is being sued in turn by other former business associates.
These events have put him in the public spotlight,
including a cover feature on him with the headline "Devastated!"
in Canada's Maclean's magazine.
Family life
Cohen has never married. In the 1960s, during his stay at
Hydra, Cohen befriended the Scandinavian novelists Axel
Jensen and Göran Tunström. Leonard lived there with
Axel's wife Marianne Jensen (now: Ihlen) and their son
Axel after they broke up. The song "So Long,
Marianne" is about her. For a long time it was
believed that the character Lorenzo in Jensen's novel Joacim
(1961) was based on Cohen, but Axel told him it was
influenced by Tunström.
He fathered two children with artist Suzanne Elrod. A
son, Adam, was born in 1972 and a daughter, Lorca, named
after poet Federico García Lorca, was born in 1974. Adam
Cohen began his own career as a singer-songwriter in the
mid-1990s.
Contrary to popular belief, "Suzanne," one of
his best-known songs, refers to Suzanne Vaillancourt, the
wife of his friend, the Québécois sculptor Armand
Vaillancourt, rather than Elrod.
Around 1990, Cohen was romantically linked, and by some
accounts formally engaged, to actress Rebecca De Mornay.
He is now seeing and working with Anjani Thomas.
Themes
Recurring themes in Cohen's work include love and sex,
religion, psychological depression, and music itself. He
has also engaged with certain political themes, though
sometimes ambiguously so.
Love and sex are common enough themes in popular music;
Cohen's background as a novelist and poet brings an
uncommon sensibility to these themes. "Suzanne,"
probably the first Cohen song to gain broad attention,
mixes a wistful type of love song with a religious
meditation, themes that are also mixed in "Joan of
Arc." "Famous Blue Raincoat" is from the
point of view of a man whose marriage has been broken (in
exactly what degree is ambiguous in the song) by his
wife's infidelity with his close friend, and is written
in the form of a letter to that friend, to whom he
writes, "I guess that I miss you/ I guess I forgive
you … Know your enemy is sleeping/ And his woman is
free", while "Everybody Knows" deals with
the harsh reality of AIDS: "… the naked man and
woman/ Are just a shining artifact of the past."
"Sisters of Mercy" evokes of genuine love (agape
more than eros) found in a hotel room encounter with two
Edmonton women, whereas "Chelsea Hotel #2"
treats his Janis Joplin one-night stand rather
unsentimentally, and the title of "Don't Go Home
with Your Hard-On" speaks for itself.
Cohen comes from a Jewish background, most obviously
reflected in his song "Story of Isaac" and in
"Who by Fire," whose words and melody echo the
Unesaneh Tokef, an 11th century liturgical poem recited
on Rosh Hashanah. Broader Judeo-Christian themes are
sounded throughout the album Various Positions:
"Hallelujah", which has music as a secondary
theme, begins by evoking the biblical king David
composing a song that "pleased the Lord";
"Coming Back to you" and "If It Be Your
Will" are clearly addressed to a Judeo-Christian God.
In his early career as a novelist, Beautiful Losers grappled
with the mysticism of the Catholic/Iroquois Tekakwitha.
Cohen has also been involved with Buddhism at least since
the 1970s and in 1996 he was ordained a Buddhist monk.
However, he still considers himself also a Jew: "I'm
not looking for a new religion. I'm quite happy with the
old one, with Judaism."
Having suffered from psychological depression during much
of his life (although less so as he has aged), Cohen has
written much (especially in his early work) about
depression and suicide. The wife of the protagonist of Beautiful
Losers commits a gory suicide; "Seems So Long
Ago, Nancy" is about a suicide; suicide is mentioned
in the darkly comic "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong";
"Dress Rehearsal Rag" is about a last-minute
decision not to kill oneself; a general atmosphere of
depression pervades such songs as "Please Don't Pass
Me By" and "Tonight Will Be Fine." A
reviewer once remarked tongue-in-cheek that Cohen's
albums should be sold with razor blades.
Besides the aforementioned "Hallelujah", music
itself is also the subject of "Tower of Song",
"A Singer Must Die", and "Jazz Police".
While politics often show up as a theme in his work, he
does not seem to be expounding one particular political
view. He clearly has a predilection for the underdog, the
"beautiful loser," whether the WWII French
resister of Anna Marly and Hy Zaret's The Partisan
(which he covered) or the royalist of his own "The
Old Revolution." Cohen's approach to war and the
world's aggression developed during his first albums,
coming to its zenith with New Skin for the Old
Ceremony, his most "militant" album.
"First We Take Manhattan" speaks in the angry
voice of someone regaining power long denied; "Democracy"
is a calmer version of the same. Several Cohen songs
speak of abortion, always either as something distasteful
or even atrocious. "Diamonds in the Mine"
bleakly declaims, "The only man of energy/ Yes the
revolution's pride/ He trained a hundred women/ Just to
kill an unborn child." In "The Future", he
sings sarcastically "Destroy another fetus now/ We
don't like children anyhow." In "Stories of the
Street" Cohen speaks of "The age of lust is
giving birth/ And both the parents ask/ The nurse to tell
them fairy tales/ from both sides of the glass."
This may suggest a uniformly bleak and serious body of
work, but in fact Cohen's songs are often verbally
playful and even cheerful. Some of his songs, such as
"Ballad of the Absent Mare" and "Hallelujah"
are simply beautiful, and "Democracy" looks at
a future as hopeful as that of "The Future" is
bleak. In "Tower of Song", the famously raw-voiced
Cohen sings ironically that he was "… born with
the gift/ Of a golden voice"; the generally dark
"Is This What You Wanted?" nonetheless contains
playful lines "You were the whore and the Beast of
Babylon/ I was Rin Tin Tin"; in concert, he often
plays around with his lyrics (for example, "If you
want a doctor/ I'll examine every inch of you" from
"I'm Your Man" will become "If you want a
Jewish doctor …"); he will introduce one song
by using a phrase from another song or poem (for example,
introducing "Leaving Green Sleeves" by
paraphrasing his own "Queen Victoria": "This
is a song for those who are not nourished by modern love").
Cohen has also covered such love songs as Irving Berlin's
"Always" or the more obscure soul number "Be
for Real" (originally sung by Marlena Shaw),
presumably chosen in part for their unlikely
juxtaposition to his own work.
Titles and honours
In 1968, Cohen refused Governor General's Award (in
category for English language poetry or drama) for
Selected Poems 1956–1968.
In 1991, Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall
of Fame.
In 1996, he was ordained a Buddhist monk.
In 2003, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada,
Canada's highest civilian honour.
In 2004, Beautiful Losers was chosen for the
inclusion in Canada Reads 2005; it was chosen
and originally to be championed by singer-songwriter
Rufus Wainwright; tour commitments meant that Wainright
had to be replaced by singer Molly Johnson.
In 2006, Cohen is inducted into the Canadian Songwriters
Hall of Fame.
Quotations
"Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like
mine win 'Vocalist of the Year'."—first words
of his speech accepting the Juno Award for Best Male
Vocalist in Canada (1992)
"I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think
of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain.
And I feel completely soaked to the skin."—from
interview with The Daily Telegraph (1993)
"Now, I don't want to give you the impression that
I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what
I was described as for a long, long time; you know,
people said I only knew three chords when I knew five."—from
interview with BBC Radio 1 FM (1994)
"I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had
in being able to make a living, and to never have had to
have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be
able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself,
which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work—just
to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for
myself has been an enormous privilege."—(same)
"It was only when you walked away I saw you had the
perfect ass. Forgive me for not falling in love with your
face or your conversation."—from The Energy
of Slaves (1972)
"So the great affair is over/ but whoever would have
guessed/ it would leave us all so vacant/ and so deeply
unimpressed/ It's like our visit to the moon/ or to that
other star/ I guess you go for nothing/ if you really
want to go that far"—from "Death of a
Ladies' Man" (1977)
"Everybody knows that you love me baby/ Everybody
knows that you really do/ Everybody knows that you've
been faithful/ Ah give or take a night or two/ Everybody
knows you've been discreet/ But there were so many people
you just had to meet/ without your clothes/And everybody
knows …"—from "Everybody Knows"
(1988).
"Ring the bells that still can ring/ Forget your
perfect offering/ There is a crack in everything/ It's
how the light gets in."—from "Anthem"
(1992)
"Well, maybe there's a God above/ But all I've ever
learned from love/ Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew
ya"—from "Hallelujah" (1984)
"And sometimes when the night is slow/ The wretched
and the meek/ We gather up our hearts and go/
A Thousand Kisses Deep."—from "A Thousand
Kisses Deep" (2004)
Works
Albums
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
Songs from a Room (1969)
Songs of Love and Hate (1971)
Live Songs (1973)
New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974)
Death of a Ladies' Man (1977)
Recent Songs (1979)
Various Positions (1984)
I'm Your Man (1988)
The Future (1992)
Cohen Live: Leonard Cohen in Concert (1994)
Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979 (2001)
Ten New Songs (2001)
Dear Heather (2004)
Blue Alert (2006) (co-writer, producer)
Compilations
The Best of Leonard Cohen (1975) (also known
as Greatest Hits)
More Best of Leonard Cohen (1997) (including two
new tracks)
The Essential Leonard Cohen (2002), double CD
Books
Let Us Compare Mythologies (poetry) 1956
The Spice-Box of Earth (poetry) 1961
The Favourite Game (novel) 1963
Flowers for Hitler (poetry) 1964
Beautiful Losers (novel) 1966
Parasites of Heaven (poetry) 1966
Selected Poems 1956–1968 (poetry) 1968
The Energy of Slaves (poetry) 1972
Death of a Lady's Man (poetry and prose) 1978
Book of Mercy (prose poetry/psalms) 1984
Stranger Music (selected poems and songs) 1993
Soundtracks
Cohen's music has often been used in film
soundtracks.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) uses three songs
from his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen:
"Stranger Song" is McCabe's theme, "Winter
Lady" is Mrs. Miller's, and "Sisters of Mercy"
is the theme of the prositutes who work in their
establishment. He also composed some incidental music for
the movie.
Bird on a Wire (1990) uses "Bird on a Wire"
sung by The Neville Brothers.
Natural Born Killers (1994) uses "The
Future," "Waiting for the Miracle," and
"Anthem," all from the album The Future.
Exotica (movie) (1994) uses "Everybody
Knows" from the album I'm Your Man.
When Night Is Falling (1995) uses "Hallelujah"
Breaking the Waves (1996) uses "Suzanne"
Wonder Boys (2000) uses "Waiting for the
Miracle."
Secretary (2002) uses "I'm Your Man."
The Life of David Gale (2003) uses "The
Future."
A Home at the End of the World (2004) uses
"Suzanne" from Songs of Leonard Cohen.
Pump Up the Volume (1990) uses "Everybody
Knows" frequently, as well as "If It Be Your
Will". A Concrete Blonde cover of "Everybody
Knows" is also heard in the film and appears on the
cd of the soundtrack.
Basquiat (1996) uses "Hallelujah"
performed by John Cale
Shrek (2001) uses a slightly censored version of
John Cale's recording of "Hallelujah." The
soundtrack album, however, replaces this with a version
by Rufus Wainwright.
Tribute albums
I'm Your Fan, from 1991, features Cohen's songs
interpreted by a variety of folk and alternative rock
acts, including R.E.M., Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,
Pixies, The Lilac Time and Geoffrey Oryema.
Tower of Song, released in 1995, has a more
mainstream pop-rock program that includes Sting, Jann
Arden, Willie Nelson and Elton John.
At least 32 tribute albums are released worldwide, mostly
in non-English languages.
Cover songs
Many of Cohen's songs have been interpreted by other
artists, occasionally receiving more popular attention
than Cohen's own, typically minimalistic arrangements.
Some of Cohen's most covered songs include:
"Avalanche," covered by Nick Cave and The Bad
Seeds.
"Bird on the Wire," covered (often as "Bird
on a Wire") by Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Judy
Collins, Fairport Convention, Willie Nelson, The Neville
Brothers, Tim Hardin, and Our Lady Peace (at Live 8).
"Everybody Knows," covered by Concrete Blonde,
Don Henley, and the Washington Squares.
"Famous Blue Raincoat," covered by Tori Amos,
Joan Baez, Lloyd Cole, Hayden, and Jennifer Warnes
"First We Take Manhattan," covered by Joe
Cocker, R.E.M., and Jennifer Warnes
"Hallelujah," covered by Bono, Jeff Buckley,
John Cale, Allison Crowe, k.d. lang, Bob Dylan, Rufus
Wainwright, and Elisa. Cale's version (slightly edited)
was featured in the movie Shrek, but
Wainwright's replaced it on the soundtrack album,
apparently because Wainwright is signed with Dreamworks
SKG and Cale is not. The Shrek theme music was
also based on "Hallelujah." In addition, the
American TV show Scrubs used parts of Cale's
"Hallelujah" (from Fragments of a Rainy
Season, not from I'm Your Fan) and it is
included on the Scrubs Soundtrack.
"Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," covered by
Judy Collins, Roberta Flack, Claudine Longet, and Ian
McCulloch
"Joan of Arc," covered by Allison Crowe,
Fabrizio de André, and Jennifer Warnes.
"So Long, Marianne," covered by John Cale and
Suzanne Vega.
"Story of Isaac," covered by Roy Buchanan, Judy
Collins, and Suzanne Vega
"Suzanne," covered by Graeme Allwright, Judy
Collins, Fabrizio de André, Neil Diamond, Fairport
Convention, Roberta Flack, Peter Gabriel, Noel Harrison,
Geoffrey Oryema, and Nina Simone. R.E.M. recorded a song
called "Hope" which they admit was indebted to
"Suzanne;" Cohen gets co-songwriting credit for
the song.
"Tower of Song", covered by Nick Cave and The
Bad Seeds and Marianne Faithfull.
"Who By Fire", covered by Coil on the album Horse
Rotorvator.
"Leonard Cohen's Day Job" by the Austin Lounge
Lizards is not a cover per se, but it alludes to and
parodies several songs, especially "I'm Your Man"
and "Joan of Arc."
As of December 18, 2005, the site www.leonardcohenfiles.com
had counted a total of 1105 published cover versions of
Cohen's songs.
Film
A film entitled "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man"
has a USA release date of Jun 21, 2006. It is a film of
the 2005 tribute to Leonard Cohen "Came So Far For
Beauty" held at the Sydney Opera House. The film was
directed by Lian Lunson, has appearances by Nick Cave,
Beth Orton, Antony of Antony and The Johnsons and others
and a performance of "Tower of Song" by Cohen
and U2.
External links
General sites on Cohen
Sites about specific albums and works
Articles, conferences, academic papers
Foreign-language sites
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen"
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