Ranking: The 10 best songs by Leonard Cohen
10. “I’m your man”
In 1988 only a few people paid attention to Leonard Cohen. The miraculous resurrection of “Hallelujah” was still in the future. And for many he seemed to be an aging folk singer from the 1960s that would appear in clubs for the rest of his life.
But then he published I’m your mana brilliant album full of synth pop songs that cover everything from neo-Nazis to the art of songwriting to what “Jazz Police” is all about. The title song is a deeply horny song pure lust. “And if you want a doctor,” says Leonard Cohen, “I examine every inch of you every inch.” He has played it at practically every concert since 1988. And he always makes the women purr in the audience.
Ranking: The 10 best songs by Leonard Cohen
9. “Anthem”
Leonard Cohen wrote an incredible amount of great lines in his long career. But only a few can compete with “Forget Your Perfect Offering/there is a crack in everything/that’s how the light gets in”.
It is the key line in “Anthem”. One of the outstanding titles of his album published in 1992 The future. The song has been donating consolation for many years in difficult times. Including the famous blogger and journalist Andrew Sullivan.
“”[Diese Zeile] I always remembered ” he wrote in 2005. “In a bleak moment of my life, she received me alive. When I sometimes all thought that I couldn’t see that something good could arise from the dirt into which I had transformed my life.”
Ranking: The 10 best songs by Leonard Cohen
8. “Tower of Song”
Many people were surprised when Leonard Cohen was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. Including Cohen himself. “I remember Jon Landau’s prophetic statement in the early 1970s,” he said. “He said, ‘I saw the future of rock’n’roll. And she doesn’t name Leonard Cohen.'”
From then on, he couldn’t do much more than to read the lines of his classic “Tower of Song” from 1988. The audience laughed at lines such as “I hurry in the places I played in earlier”. But slowly it became clear to them that he made a profound statement about his life’s work. And the audience fell silent.
Ranking: The 10 best songs by Leonard Cohen
7. “Dance Me To The End of Love”
In May 1988, Leonard Cohen decided to move “Heart with No Companion” to the end of the evening. And open his show with “Dance Me To The End of Love”. He really must have thought that it was a good move. Because as far as we can judge this, he has opened up every single concert that he has since given since then. And we speak of well over 400 consecutive shows.
The 1984 song was written on a tiny Casio synthesizer, which he had found in a tourist shop on Times Square. Like the author Sylvie Simmons in her incredible Cohen biography I’m your man: The Life of Leonard Cohen reports that the device didn’t even have an outcome. Leonard Cohen insisted that you find a way to get you running in the studio. The result is a song that many Cohen fans chase goose bumps over their backs. Because you know that a magical night full of music is just beginning.
Ranking: The 10 best songs by Leonard Cohen
6. “So long, Marianne”
Long before he published a single note music, Leonard Cohen met Marianne Ihlen. A beautiful Norwegian who should serve as a lover and muse for many years. She was married to the writer Axel Jensen when they met.
She should get his child later. But the attraction between Ihlen and Cohen was strong. They finally found space in their life for each other. She inspired him to many of his most passionate love songs from his early albums, including “So Long, Marianne”.
He spent months to get it right. The end result is the start of the second page of his debut LP Songs of Leonard Cohen from 1967.
5. “Bird on a wire”
Leonard Cohen suffered from depression when he lived on the Greek island of Hydra. And noticed a bird that was alone on a telephone cable. He began to write a poem in which he compared himself to the lonely bird. But it should take a long time before he made it a song with which he was satisfied.
During the Songs from a room-Sessions in 1968 in Nashville Cohen kept playing the song. Until he was so frustrated that he sent most of the musicians home and gave up. Days before the last session he simply went to the microphone. And spontaneously found a completely new approach to work. It became one of its most popular songs and an integral part of his live show for decades.
4. “Everybody Knows”
“Everybody Knows” is probably the most pessimistic song in Cohen’s huge repertoire. Here are things that everyone allegedly knows. The cubes are fucked. The boat is leak. The captain lied. The poor remain poor. The rich become rich. The plague comes and spreads quickly.
It’s pretty depressing, but somehow you have the feeling that we will survive this parade of terror together. Over the years, it has been interpreted by all possible artists. From Don Henley to Concrete Blonde to Rufus Wainwright.
3. “Famous Blue Raincoat”
At some point in the early 1970s, a thief Leonard Cohen’s old raincoat from Marianne Ihlens New York apartment stole. Only God alone knows what it happened. But the thief almost had no idea that he stole an object that belongs to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If not in the Smithsonian.
It was exactly this coat that inspired Leonard Cohen as one of his most popular and mysterious songs. It is written in the form of a letter. Possibly to the narrator’s brother, who spent his beloved Jane out.
“Famous Blue Raincoat” has the audience on the album since his first appearance Songs of Love and Hate from 1971 captivated. Although Cohen admits that he is not satisfied with the text.
“It was a song that I was never satisfied with,” he said in 1994. “It is not that I had opposed an impressionist approach to songwriting. But I never had the feeling that I would have really got the text in a nutshell. I am ready to give in to the secret. But secretly I always had the feeling that something was unclear about the song.”
2. “Suzanne “
There was a real Suzanne. In contrast to what the song suggests, she never had sex with Leonard Cohen. The breathtakingly beautiful Suzanne Verdal, however, served him tea and oranges when he and her friend, the renowned Canadian sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, visited her in her house in Montreal.
Leonard Cohen was forced, as it says in the song, “touching her perfect body with his mind”. The song started as a poem and was first recorded by Judy Collins in 1966. Cohen recorded the song the following year. It is the first title on his debut album. And the beginning of one of the most incredible careers in music history.
1. “Hallelujah”
The year 1984 was a pretty Great time for pop music. With new publications by Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and Van Halen, which filled the radio waves. Leonard Cohens came in the middle of all this size Various positionsthat ended up with a bang towards the end of the year.
The interest in Cohen was so low that Columbia initially refused to publish it at all, as it was of the opinion that it was not worth the effort to print copies and send them to business. Hardly anyone paid attention to the small song “Hallelujah”, which heralded the second page of the LP.
However, Cohen knew that he had created something special. He spent a lot of time with the lyrics. Filed every word. And worked through 80 different designs. When John Cale from Velvet Underground asked him to send him the lyrics so that he could covers him, he received a 15-page fax full of discarded stanzas.
Cale made a new version of the song together, which he recorded on the piano. This version covered Jeff Buckley in 1994 on his LP Grace. And slowly the song became an absolute sensation. So often covered that Adam Sandler parodyed the practice at the charity show 12/12/12 in the Madison Square Garden.
Lump in the throat
In the meantime, even people who have never heard the name “Leonard Cohen” know “Hallelujah”. It has become a modern hymn that is performed everywhere. From street corners to American idol.
Even people who believe that they could get to the rest of their lives without the song get a lump in their throat when the headlights fall on Cohen at his shows and he begins to sing: “I heard that there was a secret chord that David played and who liked the Lord …”