Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec) is a poet, novelist and folk singer/songwriter and is best known for the latter. Cohen's music is often emotionally heavy and lyrically complex, owing more to the metaphoric word play of poetry than to the conventions of folk music. Cohen's music has become very influential to other singer/songwriters and hundreds of cover versions of his work have been recorded.
Biography
Cohen was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Montreal. His father worked as a tailor. As a teenager he learned to play the guitar and formed a country/folk group called the Buckskin Boys.
In 1951, Cohen enrolled at McGill University, where he 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.
After moving to Hydra, a Greek island, Cohen published the poetry collection Flowers For Hitler (1964), and the novels The Favorite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). The Favorite 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 post-modern fashion - deconstructs the identity of the main characters by means of combining the sacred and the profane, religion and sexuality in a rich, lyrical language. For a good survey of Cohen's written works see Leonard Cohen by Steven Scobie (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1978).
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 Hammond, the same Columbia Records representative who discovered Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, among others.
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 often-covered "Bird on a Wire," Songs of Love and Hate (1971), and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974).
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. 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.
In 1977, Cohen released both a poetry collection and an album called Death of a Ladies' 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 than 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 he considered attempting to take the master tapes from Spector 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 1985, Cohen released Various Positions, featuring the often-covered "Hallelujah", but Columbia declined to release the album in the United States, where Cohen's popular had declined in recent years (Throughout his career, Cohen's music has sold better in Europe and Canada than in the U.S.).
In 1988, Cohen 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 humor. 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. He followed with another acclaimed album, The Future, in 1992
In 1993, folllowing a tour to promote The Future, Cohen retreated to the Mount Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles, California, beginning what would become six years of seclusion at the center. In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk and took the Dharma name Jikan, meaning silent one. He left Mount Baldy in 1999.
In 2001, Cohen returned to music with Ten New Songs, featuring a heavy influence from producer Sharon Robinson. In October 2004, he plans to release its follow-up Dear Heather.
Family Life
Cohen fathered two children with dancer Suzanne Verdal McCallister. The first, Adam Cohen, was born in 1972 and the second, Lorca Cohen, named after poet Federico Garcia Lorca, was born in 1974. Adam Cohen began his own career as a singer-songwriter in the mid-1990s.
Contrary to popular belief, the song "Suzanne", one of his best-known songs, takes its title from the name of Suzanne Vaillancourt, the wife of a friend, and not from the name of his own wife.
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:
- "First We Take Manhattan," covered by Joe Cocker, Jennifer Warnes and REM
- "Bird On A Wire," covered by The Neville Brothers, Fairport Convention and Judy Collins
- "Hallelujah," covered by Bob Dylan, John Cale, Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright, whose version was featured in the movie Shrek
- "Suzanne," covered by Judy Collins, Noel Harrison, Neil Diamond and Roberta Flack
As of September 19, 2004, the site had counted a total of 903 published cover versions of Cohen's songs.
Titles and Honors
Memorable quotes
- "I'm guided by a signal in the heavens/ I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin/ I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons/ first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin" -from First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- "From the homicidal bitchin', that goes down in every kitchen/ to determine who will serve and who will eat... democracy is coming to the USA." -from Democracy (1992)
- "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)
- "I needed so much/ To have nothing to touch/ I've always been greedy that way..." -from The Night Comes On (1984)
- "The ponies run, the girls are young/ The odds are there to beat/ You win a while, and then it’s done/ —Your little winning streak/ And summoned now to deal / With your invincible defeat/ You live your life as if it’s real/ A Thousand Kisses Deep." -from A Thousand Kisses Deep (2001)
- "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)
- "With Annie gone, Whose eyes to compare With the morning sun? Not that I did compare, But I do compare Now that she's gone." - Leonard Cohen Poems 1956 - 1968
- "Heavy with proverbs and corrections, confusing the star-dazed tourists with our incomparable sense of loss." - Queen Victoria (1972)
- "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." - The Energy of Slaves
Albums
- Songs of Leonard Cohen (1968)
- Songs from a Room (1969)
- Songs of Love and Hate (1970)
- 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)
- Ten New Songs (2001)
- Dear Heather (2004)
See also
