Songs of Leonard Cohen
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| Songs of Leonard Cohen | ||
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| Studio album by Leonard Cohen | ||
| Released | December 27, 1967 (limited release); February 1968 | |
| Recorded | August 1967, Columbia Studio E, New York | |
| Genre | Folk | |
| Length | 41:09 | |
| Label | Columbia Records | |
| Producer(s) | John Simon | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Leonard Cohen chronology | ||
| Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967) |
Songs from a Room (1969) |
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The album Songs of Leonard Cohen was the Canadian poet Leonard Cohen's debut into the world of popular music. It depicted the future way of his career, with less success in the United States and far better in the UK and Europe, reaching #83 on the Billboard chart but achieving gold status only in 1989, while it reached #13 in UK.
Cohen's lonely and all-too-human songs were a marked contrast against the feel-good hippie music and culture dominating at the time. Judy Collins and Noel Harrison both previously had hits performing the song "Suzanne" (in 1966 and 1967 respectively).
Cohen and John Simon, producer and musical director, managed to give the album a distinct sound while also relying on typical sixties effects such as instruments panning from channel to channel. Although Cohen was granted much freedom in the recording process, they did not always agree on how the record should be mixed. Finally, Simon departed for his Christmas holiday and left the final mix to the artist himself. In a 2001 interview Cohen told British music magazine Mojo: "We did have a falling out over the song "Suzanne." He wanted a heavy piano syncopated and maybe drums and I didn't want drums on any of my songs, so that was a bone of contention."
On some of the tracks Cohen was backed by strings, the band Kaleidoscope and Nancy Priddy's vocals. The original producer was John Hammond, who signed Cohen to Columbia, but he was replaced by Simon because of health problems.
"Suzanne", which begins and ends as an ode to an "half-crazy" woman capable of personal connection, contains an unconventional discussion of Jesus in the second verse which has been removed in at least one cover of the song. It is on one level a reference to a Jesus figure on top of a sailor's church overlooking the river in Montréal.
Three of the album's songs, "Winter Lady," "The Stranger Song," and "Sisters of Mercy," were used in the 1971 Robert Altman film McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
Songs of Leonard Cohen was released on CD in 1989, while a digipak edition was released in some European countries in 2003.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Leonard Cohen.
[edit] Side one (20:30)
- "Suzanne" – 3:48
- "Master Song" – 5:55
- "Winter Lady" – 2:15
- "The Stranger Song" – 5:00
- "Sisters of Mercy" – 3:32
[edit] Side two (20:32)
- "So Long, Marianne" – 5:38
- "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" – 2:55
- "Stories of the Street" – 4:35
- "Teachers" – 3:01
- "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" – 4:23
[edit] Selected cover recordings
Peter Gabriel recorded a syncopated version of "Suzanne" for the Leonard Cohen tribute album Tower of Song, and Geoffrey Oryema performed it on the earlier tribute I'm Your Fan. Italian singer Fabrizio de Andre sang an Italian version of the song on his CD Canzoni.
The song "Sisters of Mercy" was the inspiration for the name of the Gothic rock band The Sisters of Mercy, who also took a line from the song "Teachers" as the title of their 1992 compilation album Some Girls Wander By Mistake. Sting and The Chieftans performed a Celtic music-influenced version of the song on Tower of Song.
Brian Hyland released "So Long, Marianne" as a single in 1971, while the britpop group James recorded it on I'm Your Fan.
"Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" was performed by Ian McCulloch on I'm Your Fan.
