I remember fondly an era in which I was the only person I knew who was a fan of Leonard Cohen. When I was in college, I personally introduced many of my friends to the dark, brooding pleasures of “Suzanne”, “The Stranger Song”, “Famous Blue Raincoat”, and “Take This Longing”.
Most, quite sensibly, rejected him: “music to slit your wrists by”.
On June 2, 2008, I joined more than 2000 people paying over $100 a seat in Centre in the Square in Kitchener to see “the grocer of despair” on his latest (and last, perhaps) tour. With the exception of “Suzanne”, he didn’t do any of my six or seven favorite songs, which are, without exception, products of his early career, before he became the bard of rueful despair, rather than the bard of exquisite, flaming rage and desire… and despair.
Nothing in this concert suggested the searing heat and mystical vulgarity of his brilliant novel “Beautiful Losers” or the searing heat and mystical vulgarity of “Songs of Love and Hate”.
I have a couple of favorites from his later albums– “First We Take Manhattan” and “Hallelujah” of course. His backup singers, the Webb Sisters, performed a marvelous version of “If it be Your Will”. The band was smoking on “Who By Fire”, the best performance of the night. “I’m Your Man” was fine. But I longed to hear the Cohen I first came to love, and his explorations of the dark links between sensuality and mysticism and despair and grace.
Well, what kind of a sick person “enjoys” listening to this:
There is no comfort in the covens of the witch
Some very clever doctor went and sterilized the bitch
And the only man of energy, yes the revolution’s pride
He trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child
(Leonard Cohen, “Diamonds in the Mine” from “Songs of Love and Hate”)
Or
And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil
that I had to draw aside to see
the serpent eat its tail.
And the answer is: me.
(Leonard Cohen, “Last Year’s Man” from “Songs of Love and Hate”)
Would Mr. Cohen be embarrassed to sing those lines today?
He now sings “give crack and careless sex” instead of “give me crack and anal sex”, so, yes, I think he is. And to sing them with passion?
It is more embarrassing to hear him wail, unconvincingly, “there is a crack in everything/ that’s how the light gets in”.
Songs I wish he had skipped:
- Democracy
- I Tried to Leave You (the joke, of performing this as an encore, is worn out)
- Anthem (Cohen’s Hallmark Card song; yes, there is a crack in everything, but sometimes there is a light in everything and a crack gets in.)
- A Thousand Kisses Deep
- Bird on the Wire (I know this is a fan favorite but even Joe Cocker can’t make it interesting musically).
Songs I wish he had performed
Famous Blue Raincoat
Take This Longing
Chelsea Hotel
Last Year’s Man
Stranger Song
Memories