“We weren’t lovers like that but even then it would still be okay” – Sisters of Mercy
Strange how I have been writing for so long about my acute aesthetic experiences and yet only now have I set aside a post to one of my true heroes of the verse, the palatable Mr. Leonard Cohen. Here I stand in awe and reverence worthy of a Montreal poet, a Zen Buddhist monk, a rock star and crooner, and grocer of despair. I knew him first from his poems and then got around to his songs and then in documentary form in the wonderful bit of cinema verite that was ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Leonard Cohen’. There is a wonderful moment in that film where the youthful Leonard is shown the documentary and we watch him watching himself onscreen, and its like watching revelation, a poet that has swept every corner finding all of a sudden a new dimension to his identity to work with.
In June I will finally have the rare opportunity to see brother Cohen perform, something he has not done publically in some fifteen years of boredom. Elated is hardly the word for what I feel, but I guess it’ll do. In celebration of this reprise of genius I thought I would cobble together a playlist in his honour. While not entirely surrendering to the best-of impulse of lesser lists, I have included the tried tested and true works, Suzanne and First We Take Manhattan, but tried to offset these with peculiar yet earnest songs that show the underappreciated range Cohen has musically and lyrically. Regarding the arrangement, Last Year’s Man is one of my all-time favorite songs but it took at least a decade for it to seep in. Not the most accessible of his songs, for sure, but walk with a bit and see where it takes you. One of the rare tracks Cohen used a children chorus, and this playlist ends with yet another. Forgive the exclusion of Hallelujah, and Sisters of Mercy, I choose not to include them simply because I am so fond of the covers of them that I wanted to limit to those songs that I felt Cohen had full possession of.
Enough talk, let’s listen.
1) Last Year’s Man
2) In My Secret Life
3) I’m Your Man (live)
4) If it Be Your Will
5) Suzanne (live)
6) Ballad of the Absent Mare
7) A Singer Must Die
8) First We Take Manhattan
9) Songs of Love and Hate
10) Famous Blue Raincoat
11) Dress Rehearsal Rag
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