Leonard Cohen Discussion Thread

[Black Francis]

Leonard Cohen

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/2449527/Leonard+Cohen+295701100462.jpg

"For four decades, Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time, a figure whose body of work achieves greater depths of mystery and meaning as time goes on. His songs have set a virtually unmatched standard in their seriousness and range. Sex, spirituality, religion, power – he has relentlessly examined the largest issues in human lives, always with a full appreciation of how elusive answers can be to the vexing questions he raises. But those questions, and the journey he has traveled in seeking to address them, are the ever-shifting substance of his work, as well as the reasons why his songs never lose their overwhelming emotional force. "

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410JSDCP71L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

His debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen is something you need to pick up and listen to the whole way through. Here's one of my favorite songs from it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ61su9H5RU

From Leonard's 2nd album Songs from a Room

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Songs_from_a_room.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNN0804olxw

The Old Revolution is written from the point of view of a defeated royalist, Cohen has throughout his career through his music expressed his sympathy and support for the oppressed.

"I fought in the old revolution on the side of the ghost and the King. Of course I was very young and I thought that we were winning; I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing as they carry the bodies away. Into this furnace I ask you now to venture, you whom I cannot betray. "

Please feel free to share anything you feel about this artist. Please let me know if any of my links are broken.

~Thanks & Enjoy~

:biggrin:

[Black Francis]

http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/thevolume/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/leonard-cohen-songs.jpg

The Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen's third album is other classic that remains a significant work almost 40 years later.

Here is Diamonds in the Mine the 4th song from Songs of Love and Hate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odKyTEw3bFw

"Diamonds in the Mine" is often quoted as being a song about abortion with the lyric: "The only man of energy/ Yes the revolution's pride/ He trained a hundred women/ Just to kill an unborn child", always being used to substantiate this. However, extensive research suggests this song is actually about the demise of the hedonism of the 1960s. The "man of energy" referred to is Charles Manson and the "unborn child" is Sharon Tate's unborn baby when the Manson "Family" committed the atrocities in 1969.

[JamesRitcheyIII]

Seriously? No one else responded to this? I just found it.

Cohen was a head above every other lyricist/songwriter of the last half of the 20th century, and he ain't dead, yet. In the 'eighties, I was in a local art rock band of little notoriety, and sidelined in a few other projects. I was heavily influenced by Lou Reed and John Cale, pre-1980 David Bowie, Gang of Four, The Comsat Angels, Early Roxy Music and Peter Gabriel's first four albums. Over the years, I had almost every person I played with tell me I was the best lyricist they'd ever worked with. I didn't discover Cohen until about 1990, and it was like discovering Alan Moore or Steve Gerber for the first time--a complete revelation about how words could be used to move people. I'd had my guts kicked out by corporate music by 1988 (a couple of 'burial contracts' were offered by Arista and Epic--we didn't take them), and my band went into a direction I didn't really like, so I quit. Ironically, I'm writing better songs now, but haven't performed live in 20 years. I jammed with a friend and a bass player he was trying to put a cover band together with a while back who I'd never played with, and he was astonished that I never got anywhere with the whole 'singing' thing.

Point to all of this, is I've always wondered how different my life might have been--and how much better my lyrics might have been--if I'd discovered Leonard Cohen as an influence when I was 19, rather than 29. Besides if I'd not been a 'quitter'.

[jesse_custer]

So what's a good starting place with Cohen?

The good news is that I've liked every song of his I've heard in movies, etc.

[JamesRitcheyIII]

So what's a good starting place with Cohen?

The good news is that I've liked every song of his I've heard in movies, etc.

I'd recommend going straight to the sources of those movie songs--I'm Your Man and The Future--then working backwards. Not a weak song on them, but that can be said of 90% of his albums. Still, his 10% of suck on a couple albums is better than most songwriter's 100%. He doesn't write his songs as much as he 'sculpts' them.

Various Positions is a masterpiece as well, and more indicative of of the overall timbre of his work--more folk-oriented-- Klezmer, quite often. I'm no erudite folkie--good is just good.

[bigbluntz]

One of my all time favs :biggrin: Closing Time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVt6vhRAu3k

"Ah we're drinking and we're dancing and the band is really happening and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high" :cool:

So what's a good starting place with Cohen?

The good news is that I've liked every song of his I've heard in movies, etc.

James makes a good point about where to start and so does the OP. Seems like the OP is / was going chronologically.
Leonard's 1st album "Songs of Leonard Cohen" is a great place to start. All of his early stuff is really good. Suzanne, Avalanche, Famous Blue Raincoat, etc etc.

If you want to check out his current stuff listen to Live in London its outstanding!! :biggrin:
Listen to it on his myspace to get started: http://www.myspace.com/leonardcohenlegacy

:cool:

[Black Francis]

Nice to see some responses finally :biggrin:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/New_Skin_for_the_Old_Ceremony.jpg

New Skin for the Old Ceremony is Cohen's fourth studio album. It was remastered in 1995 and I highly recommend you go out and pick it up.

Possibly the most famous song from this album Chelsea Hotel #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YDb1mZxQRk

The song refers to a sexual encounter in the Chelsea Hotel. For some years, when performing the song live, Cohen would tell a story that made it clear that the person he was singing about was Janis Joplin.

[berk]

Cohen's a master, no doubt about it. I love the starkness of his earlier work, when it was often just him and his guitar. Never really been quite as taken with his later stuff where he was backed by a complete band. The songwriting was probably as strong as ever, but the fuller arrangements just don't seem to bring out his strengths as clearly for me - the way his melodies and lyrics and that deep, evocative voice all complement one another to such powerful effect. Then again, I haven't really listened to those albums that much, so one of these days I'll have to give them more serious attention and see if I won't change my mind.

[howyadoin]

One of my all time favs :biggrin: Closing Time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVt6vhRAu3k

"Ah we're drinking and we're dancing and the band is really happening and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high" :cool: Speaking as a guy who's devoted his life to Johnny Walker wisdom, that song is a damn near flawless depiction.

[Ontir]

I'd heard Cohen's music, I think we all have, it's nearly impossible not to have. I hand't really paid much attention though. Then a documentary/concert film, Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man was released. Watching it, I realised where some of the songs I loved and new mainly from other films like "Pump Up the Volume" and "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" to name but a few, had come from. Listening to the lyrics, for the first time really, I came to understand in some way, what a treasure Cohen is. He holds nothing back, and spares nobody, not even himself. I ended up buying the soundtrack, and though (thanks to limited funds) I don't own too much in the way of his original recordings, yet, I do listen. I do enjoy, and I'm glad that the doc brought him to my more conscious appreciation.

*In the film, he concedes that Chelsea Hotel #2 was indeed about Joplin, and that he's somewhat ashamed about having been so ungallant.

[bigbluntz]

*In the film, he concedes that Chelsea Hotel #2 was indeed about Joplin, and that he's somewhat ashamed about having been so ungallant.

Here is the BBC interview where he talks about it about half way down the page,

http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/bbctrans.htm

"There was the sole indiscretion, in my professional life, that I deeply regret, because I associated a woman's name with a song, and in the song I mentioned, I used the line "giving me head on an unmade bed while the limousines wait in the street", and I've always disliked the locker- room approach to these matters, I've never spoken in any concrete terms of a woman with whom I've had any intimate relationships. And I named Janis Joplin in that song, I don't know when it started, but I connected her name with the song, and I've been feeling very bad about that ever since, it's an indiscretion for which I'm very sorry, and if there is some way of apologising to the ghost, I want to apologise now, for having committed that indiscretion."

Cohen's a master, no doubt about it. I love the starkness of his earlier work, when it was often just him and his guitar. Never really been quite as taken with his later stuff where he was backed by a complete band. The songwriting was probably as strong as ever, but the fuller arrangements just don't seem to bring out his strengths as clearly for me - the way his melodies and lyrics and that deep, evocative voice all complement one another to such powerful effect. Then again, I haven't really listened to those albums that much, so one of these days I'll have to give them more serious attention and see if I won't change my mind.

I enjoy his early works as well, but him with a band is a really nice change. Like in the "Closing Time" song I posted earlier.
There is also a version of "Diamonds in the mine" with a live band that is really great.

I'd like to leave you with a version of "Who By Fire" where a live band assists him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2T274bXIxU

The best part of this performance IMHO is the saxaphone solo by none other than jazz legend Sonny Rollins. :biggrin:

[jamesmanro]

Great post. I know least about Cohen before reading this post. There is a lot of information is available here in your discussion. Thanks for sharing this musical god's history with us.

[Black Francis]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/Death_of_a_Ladies_Man.jpg

Death of a Ladies' Man released in 1977 is the fifth of Leonard Cohen's albums. What makes this work unique is that it was co-written and produced by the legendary Phil Spector, who himself is known for originating the "Wall of Sound" production technique.

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, before Cohen had completed his vocals. Spector barred him from the studio (supposedly under armed guard) and mixed the album by himself. For this reason some of the songs only have "guiding vocals" originally meant to be redone later. 15 songs were written by the two over a course of three weeks, and Spector described it as "some great fuckin' music".

The 6th song to appear on this album, "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-on" ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cT-UPUeRW0

features Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg singing backup vocals on the chorus.

[berk]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/Death_of_a_Ladies_Man.jpg

Death of a Ladies' Man released in 1977 is the fifth of Leonard Cohen's albums. What makes this work unique is that it was co-written and produced by the legendary Phil Spector, who himself is known for originating the "Wall of Sound" production technique.

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, before Cohen had completed his vocals. Spector barred him from the studio (supposedly under armed guard) and mixed the album by himself. For this reason some of the songs only have "guiding vocals" originally meant to be redone later. 15 songs were written by the two over a course of three weeks, and Spector described it as "some great fuckin' music".

The 6th song to appear on this album, "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-on" ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cT-UPUeRW0

features Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg singing backup vocals on the chorus.I was going to ask earlier what people thought of this album. I've never listened to the album, but Cohen and Spector seems like such an odd combination I've always been curious about it.

Now if I can just get my audio back that I lost after upgrading to ubuntu 9.10 I might be able to find out for myself.

[Black Francis]

In 1979 we would see Leonard return to his acoustic folk roots with his sixth studio album Recent Songs. Some regard this work as his best since his debut.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/43/Recent_songs.jpg

The 4th song on this album, Came So Far for Beauty http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLfZCraw_4c

In these ten songs we would also see the addition of many jazz and Oriental influences to his music. Including violin player Raffi Hakopian, oud player John Bilezikjian, embers of the band Passenger, a Mexican Mariachi band, an appearance from Garth Hudson of The Band, and the return of singer Jennifer Warnes.

Track 8 from this CD, The Gypsy's Wife http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9K-3JTzP6I

The tenth and final song that appears on this album, Ballad of the Absent Mare, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp7XP37vgU0
is possibly the most covered song from this CD. It's metaphoric lyrics are based on the twelfth-century text by the Chinese master Ka-Kuan.