Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall | Hacker News Reader

Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall

theatlantic.com

141 pointspseudolus112 comments

I get a bit choked up when I see his mural in Montreal: https://www.mtl.org/en/what-to-do/culture-arts-heritage/leon...

This surprised me:

    ...the rock era unfolded as ... a series of begats (Elvis begat the Beatles, the Beatles begat Jann Wenner, etc.) involving identity-famished teenagers and their heroes ... Cohen is absent from this narrative for one simple reason: He was the same age as Elvis.

I had to look this up: Actually he was a few months older (born in 1934 while Elvis was 1935).

>involving identity-famished teenagers

Transposed to HN it would be:

The era of software unfolded as a series of frameworks, involving identity-famished nerds and their languages...

This seems to overlook the more obvious reason he is absent from that narrative: he was never all that popular. His only top 100 hit, for "Hallelujah", came in 2016, after his death.[0]

[0]: https://www.billboard.com/artist/leonard-cohen/; compare to Elvis https://www.billboard.com/artist/elvis-presley/, Beatles https://www.billboard.com/artist/the-beatles/

Yep, the album Various Positions on which Hallelujah appeared was not even released in the US by Columbia, they released it in Europe instead.

I think it was only after Bob Dylan covered Hallelujah ~1988 at one of his live concerts, he was the first to cover it (John Cale did it in 1991), that the song and the album exploded in popularity.

Or after Jeff Buckley's cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8AWFf7EAc4

it's safe to say he was always a cult favorite at least since the mid-90s when I first heard of him. Mainstream writers of all sorts (music press among others) have certainly been writing about him for as long, for the same set of reasons he's being written about here

When I was backpacking in Germany some many years ago I stumbled upon a concert of him and tried to convince some peers to watch it, IIRC the venue was suitable to hang around and listen to without a ticket, and everybody thought that it was the uncoolest thing ever. I still disagree, Leonard Cohen is amazing. Much cooler than most rocks stars. I would be happy if his song become a thing again.

My mom dragged me to one of his last concerts and i had similar expectations as your peers. Since then he has been my role model in terms of coolness.

I saw him perform twice in Los Angeles. Despite being over 70, he performed over 3 hours. It was outstanding. Outside of seeing U2 at the Sphere, it was the best live events I've ever attended.

I once listened to an interview with him in which he was asked if he always wore black.

His response was that no, earlier in the day he was wearing grey but it clashed with the rain so he went home and changed.

Love this song - The Partisan (le chant des partisans) - WW2 resistance's song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs5hOhI4pEE

What a writer. We were lucky to share the same planet for a while.

1000 kisses deep, if it be your will, you want it darker, tower of song, ain’t no cure for love, anthem, and on and on. Most songwriters will never write one of those, but he just kept on going.

He was our man, our searching, restless, yearning man.

http://archive.today/i4EDT

I highly recommend Cohen's The Book of Longing. It has carried me over the years through mountains of heartbreak. It was one of the first poetry books that I ever read and introduced me into a whole new realm of literature.

Here's hoping that some HN users discover Leonard Cohen via this thread! For me it was life changing.. up there with the impact of Glass, Ali Farka Toure, the genre of Flamenco in and of itself, Simon Shaheen, Ennio Morricone, Goran Bregovic, Yann Tiersen, Islands, etc, on me. (although a lot of these aren't really related to each other, just sort of speaking to that "musical impact" on a person)

Whats the best start or way to go to discover Cohen for a newb?

Here's a Youtube video ("A Guide to Leonard Cohen") that came out right after he died and provides a brief bio and discusses some of his work: https://youtu.be/rLQD_kugBBM

Maybe one of his later in life live performance albums (Live in Dublin or Live in London)would be a good place to start, if you don’t mind spending an hour of audio listening. He’s personable, performs his greatest hits, and feels like a man demonstrating his life’s work.

Not the poster you asked but I'd say.. Start at or near the beginning. Later stuff has some gnarly sounding synths and arrangements that might not sound all that palatable to the modern ear (very 80s).

For me I first heard him via his album "Songs of Love and Hate". I found it in my dads record collection after a funeral of a close family member.

It's still my favourite.

Pretty sure I first found out about Cohen (and Pixies!) via Pump Up The Volume (1990). Fantastic movie. I thought the Concrete Blonde Everybody Knows cover was good, but then I dug and found the real thing and was blown away..

FWIW I think they're comparable, but just very different. Johnette Napolitano's voice is fantastic, and she really gets to stretch out on "Everybody Knows". As good as the recorded version is, hearing Concrete Blonde do it live was amazing. I saw them in 1993 in St. Louis and that show is still in my top 10 concerts, ever.

> synths and arrangements that might not sound all that palatable to the modern ear

Are you referring to I'm Your Man? Because I'd say that it's his single most accessible collection of songs, and that his adoption of modern instrumentation was a genius move. The backing track for "First We Take Manhattan" sounds like New Order!

It's not modern instrumentation. It's a Technics arranger keyboard like the kind you might have heard in an airport smoking lounge. He started using them because they allowed him to build an arrangement without the help of other musicians. They've always sounded chintzy to me but they worked for him because of the cabaret nature of his songs.

His Technics is used in places, such as "Tower of Song". But "First We Take Manhattan" was recorded using a Synclavier, which at the time was as cutting-edge as you could get.

Interesting. I didn't know that about the Synclavier. I still think the production in his later stuff will sound very quaint to anyone encountering it for the first time.

He was a really dedicated user of those Technics machines. He and Wesley Willis, lol.

With respect to the many comments about LC's synth aestetic, Its a mistake to judge [art and media] against current standards. They should instead be evaluated through the lens and give insight as to what the target audience wanted then. - paraphrased from a statement by Quentin Tarantino about film

His later tour stuff is great as another commented mentioned, but I'd say maybe give 'I'm Your Man' a whirl (it has Everybody Knows and Take This Waltz). If you don't like it then you probably won't like LC in general (although you maybe could still like Hallelujah as that one has sort of taken over the mainstream consciousness. Definitely a great song, and I'm in the minority probably being that I dislike most of the Hallelujah "covers", preferring the LC original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Your_Man_(Leonard_Cohen_...

Songs from a Room from 1990 is also pretty great, with one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard, The Partisan.

His early stuff is a little different, mostly due to his voice being different tonally and being much younger (just his later stuff with the gruff voice comes off kind of different, but stylistically his music has stayed pretty consistent-- he has explored and incorporated world music throughout his career for instance), but you can't go wrong with his first album from 1967, with classics like Suzanne and So Long, Marianne.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Leonard_Cohen

I guess it is just a typo, but Songs from a Room is from 1969. For me his first three albums: Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room, and Songs of Love and Hate made a kind of trilogy. I've always loved these ones, while his other albums more grown on me over time.

You know I thought it was a very early one, but I looked it up on Google and it said 1990 so I just blindly accepted it. Must have been a reference to a reissue perhaps..

Suzanne is quintessential young Cohen: written as poetry before he became a singer, put to simple but enjoyable music, personal but relatable in its theme and quite evocative of the 60s.

I think the best way to understand Cohen is that he is a legitimate poetry writer who realised early on that his voice and good look could earn him more money as a singer. He is in a lot of way a better Dylan except giving him the Nobel would have been less insulting to Roth.

I think I' have to share my favourite cover of "Take this waltz" then:

https://youtu.be/F2_6XXmIP2U?si=2XyKxNCd9rPq8Im2

Wow! What a talented young man, and incredible rendition. And the piano improvisation toward the end was excellent and unexpected. This made my day, thank you.

Awesome hidden YouTube gem indeed! Thank you!

Who By Fire

The little-known story of Leonard Cohen’s concert tour to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War

https://mattifriedman.com/who-by-fire/

I'd start with The Future (1992), I'm Your Man (1988), and Ten New Songs (2001). Those are, IMO, his most accessible and there's a very good chance you already know a few of those songs and haven't realized you know those songs. (e.g., "Everybody Knows" from I'm Your Man has been in a few movies, as have "The Future", and "Waiting for a Miracle" from The Future.)

Note that there's a really stark difference in his voice starting in the mid-80s. His early stuff doesn't sound quite right to me because I equate Leonard Cohen with his voice in the later albums.

I started with I'm Your Man and it's probably still my favorite but there are good reasons why his best known work is on the first few albums.

Is it? I guess I have no idea what people perceive as his best-known work, generally. You may well be right - RYM has far more reviews of Songs of Leonard Cohen (and a higher average rating) than I'm Your Man or The Future. I still like those albums more, but I appear to be in the minority on that.

The Best Of Leonard Cohen a classic early collection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_Leonard_Cohen

But his albums, especially the early ones, are worth getting because of the extraordinary standard of both songwriting and production (by Bob Johnston).

Suzanne

"The Best of Leonard Cohen" isn't a bad place. It's from mid-career, so not exhaustive, but most of the songs on it are gems.

I learned about Leonard Cohen by watching the movie McCabe and Mrs Miller. Recommended.

I learned about him by reading (but no audio...) and then watching Barney's version.

A great songwriter, a great book, a very nice movie.

On my watchlist!

Live in London is a great representation of how he sounded toward the end of his touring career, and I think it is a great place to start. IMO, there's not a bad track on the album.

First you take Manhattan. Then you take Berlin. You want it darker?

I'm fond of the R.E.M. cover of First We Take Manhattan (which also was my introduction to Cohen).

That's a terrific track. Awesome intro riff, too.

His first two albums are a revelation

If you can cope with "man and guitar", nothing else

It is the songs. Just the songs

I think either this, or his last two albums.

The Hills[1] is just sublime.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FesS3D-7o1g

Live in London is a great album to atart with - he was in his seventies, doing a multi-year world tour, and still sounding absolutely at the top of his game.

I'm your Man, like some of his other 80s albums, can be a bit synth-heavy - which may be surprising if you've only heard Suzanne. I'd recommend it, although I dislike the final track (Jazz Police).

His final album, You Want it Darker is elegiac and sadly lovely. Probably not the place to start though.

I'm your Man has been rarely covered but someone did a good job of it https://youtu.be/qH06n-5-B70

In my experience, the best way to discover Leonard Cohen's music is while driving back from a high school club convention in 1996, and the cool teacher starts playing New Skin for the Old Ceremony on cassette. And you're like: "this isn't Nirvana, what is it?!"

BUT, if you can't swing that, there's a great Best Of album that is 100% bangers. Slow, dark, introspective bangers.

Hah, love it.

I don't know about the best way to discover him, but nobody yet mentioned "Famous blue raincoat" nor "Dance me to the end of love" and I just couldn't let them go unnoticed. "Take this waltz" and "Hallelujah" are also great.

Those are all wonderful songs and included in the 2002 compilation 'The Essential Leonard Cohen', which incidentally is how I discovered his music.

I don't think it matters where you start, but start with the expectation that a lot of the music is really more spoken word poetry set to music, the emphasis is on the lyrics and their layered metaphor, and so the music strongly benefits from repeated listening.

There's stuff you won't unpack until you've listened to a song dozens of times.

just do the greatest hits, and maybe songs of love and hate.

The first thing I listened to from him was his very last album, "You Want it Darker", released less than a month before he passed. I don't know whether it's the best way to start, but I absolutely love the album, and it made a huge impact on me. It's one of the most emotional sets of music I've ever heard. You can hear his voice straining to its limits, he's putting everything he's got into it.

The posthumous Thanks for the Dance is a fantastic album as well. If anything, even more emotional than You Want It Darker.

I grew up with Leonard's music in the 90s, but it was only after his death that I learned about his non-musical poetry through another favorite of mine - the Swedish group "First Aid Kit". They did an absolutely breathtaking tribute show to honor their idol, where they arranged his music and poetry with a few of their friends: https://youtu.be/of_hZoVvqaM

My favourite cover of "Hallelujah" is the yiddish one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1fERC_504

There was a recent article about hallelujah.

https://subtledigressions.substack.com/p/hallelujah-leonard-...

Nope, doesn't work with Yiddish/German language, too abrupt and hard. I would say Hebrew since it flows naturally with the word Hallelujah, but even that...

I dislike "Hallelujah" and am not aware of other songs from him. There's the line "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally" in Pennyroyal Tea, which made me not judge him, and then there was Chris Cornell's daughter Toni singing it for her father [0], which was really moving.

What am I missing out on?

[0] https://youtu.be/w5-M1lwLvDU?t=75

It’s funny, I quite viscerally hate Cohen’s original Hallelujah, but I first encountered it as sung by Jeff Buckley, and that version I absolutely love.

Otherwise I like his first album (Songs of Leonard Cohen) when I’m in the mood for something depressing, but everything else of his I’ve heard just sounds to me like a drunk on a street corner with a Casio keyboard.

> everything else of his I’ve heard just sounds to me like a drunk on a street corner with a Casio keyboard

Though I disagree with the characterization, there's a beauty in it, too

> on a street corner with a Casio keyboard

Muscling in on Wesley Willis' territory!

I wouldn’t discount exploring further if you disliked Hallelujah, as the song is a bit niche even against LC’s larger library. Find a best of album and give it a go. ‘Everybody Knows’ and many others that you may better regard will certainly be on it.

Pretty much every track is a hit, but here are some four random personal favourites:

- Everybody Knows https://youtu.be/Gxd23UVID7k

- First We Take Manhattan https://youtu.be/JTTC_fD598A

- Famous Blue Raincoat https://youtu.be/ohk3DP5fMCg

- Who By Fire https://youtu.be/ilGahIwQEQ0

Obviously too many to list here though, just pick up any album. By virtue of the fact that he was an incredible songwriter, his songs have such wonderful covers.

The Tori Amos cover of Famous Blue Raincoat [0] is one of my favourites, and this cover of Who by Fire by PJ Harvey & Tim Phillips gives me chills every time [1] (also the theme for Bad Sisters which is an amazing series). Also, pretty much every Canadian who was an adult in 2010 has an emotional connection to the k.d. lang performance of Hallelujah at the Vancouver olympics [2].

[0] https://youtu.be/PMSbICWbjBw

[1] https://youtu.be/PPY_MqCfMqE

[2] https://youtu.be/tcOQSk_cMO0

one of my favorite LC covers, Chelsea Hotel, by one of my favorite artists, lead singer for the Belgian band Intergalactic Lovers:

https://youtu.be/BGKIA7QUEGY?si=d_uzxaJOmiNEAJAm

If you dig her, check out this Intergalactic Lovers concert, basically most of the songs from Little Heavy Burdens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVUW5t1HK_Y

You may enjoy the _Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song_: https://youtu.be/tKNXude-qqc?feature=shared

Concrete Blonde did a great cover of Everybody Knows — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Fb4K8pNmg

Johnette is a poet herself and a fantastic vocalist; she keeps the cynicism and the heartbreak. The cover has always _felt_ like a Cohen song to me.

Really enjoyed that, cheers.

My favourite cover of "Who By Fire" is by Susanne Wallumrød, featuring Giovanna Pessi on harp and Jane Achtman on viola da gamba [1].

The whole album — a mix of renaissance, baroque, and modern songs (such as The Plaint by Henry Purcell) performed on viola da gamba and harp — is superb.

[1] https://youtu.be/I9RkoLkLOBA?si=rReBmU3qU-tO8Fyq

I love it! Hardly the only Leonard Cohen song that I think would feel at home amongst renaissance and baroque songs.

Jennifer Warnes cover of Famous Blue Raincoat is so good - partially because it’s so of it’s time (80’s)

The entire album New Skin for the Old Ceremony is worth a listen. It contains many of his “hits” and is approachable for a modern audience.

For me Cohen is a double whammy, if you like to (or are able to?) "look at music" - his music is really fun to look at, I mean the composition etc, just how he lays it out is really really good. His lyrics are also sublime, he started as a poet, many think he's not much of a singer, his voice is.. you know, whatever, I think it took me some time to really..take the time... to look at his music properly, to see what all the fuss is about? It's pretty good, if you like looking at music he might, be the best... :) - 2:18 thru 4:05 in here is some "very cohen-ish" type stuff I particularly enjoy, it's a really fun walk. I find a lot of new stuff in this song each time I listen to it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux8s4wJXNnA

There's also "A Thousand Kisses Deep" and its rare cover by Jackson Browne https://youtu.be/w_mV4tdw2wY

And "Dance Me To The End of Love" which has also been beautifully covered.

I'm also very fond of Chelsea Hotel (more touching if you get the context) and Boogie Street.

Most of Cohen isn't very accessible to me as I miss many cultural markers, but they still very often feel appropriate (pop-up) in times of melancholy...

My fav doc, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, A Way of Life (1994) was Narrated by Leonard Cohen and it's soooo good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg8ikDKL_zs

Leonard Cohen is one of those artists where I tend to much prefer someone else's version of his songs than I do his songs.

I wonder how many people were introduced to him in the late 90s from The Soprano's opening theme?

For me it was Rufus Wainright’s cover of Hallelujah from Shrek. I agree though, that his songwriting is often most-elevated in someone else’s hands.

Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah is one of if not the best cover song ever period.

At least in terms of emotive distance between original and cover, I'd say Joe Cocker's version of "With a Little Help from My Friends" beats it.

Cocker's version was so compelling they didn't even bother doing the little flat-VI coda from the original. That's the musical equivalent of going out for a coffee during Final Jeopardy because you're so far ahead.

Check out Jason Isabel and the 400 Unit’s cover of Metallica’s Sad But True.

Even if you’re not a Metallica fan, it’s a fannnnntastic song.

I’m pretty sure it’s John Cale singing in the movie.

A quick search tells me Wainright’s version is on the soundtrack.

I’m down with some nasty bug now and on antibiotics so I may be completely off, but I stand by it being Cale on the movie.

From Wikipedia,

>Cale's version is used in the film Shrek (2001), but Rufus Wainwright's version appears on the soundtrack album.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(Leonard_Cohen_song...

I like the Wainright cover, but I think there's a direct line from there to Hallelujah becoming a Christmas song. Not that it isn't beautiful, but the song as written is also tinged with irony and without Cohen's winking mixup of the sacred and the profane, it sounds kind of schmaltzy.

Is that pretentious? Hell yeah. Cohen brings out the pretentious side of me because he was such a brilliant writer and it bums me out when his work gets mistaken for platitudes.

Anyone who uses Hallelujah as a Christmas song should be filed with the folks who think Springsteen’s Born in the USA is positively patriotic.

It’s a common mistake, but this wasn’t him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_Up_This_Morning

His song ‘Nevermind’ was used as the opening theme for season 2 of True Detective. It has a similar mood imo.

We don't know this True Detective Season 2 that you speak of. It went from the first season to the third season. We've all agreed that season 2 never happened. You must have missed the memo. It should be pinned at the top of your Slack channel. It should definitely be listed in HN's policies.

I always thought the Alabama3 track was just a remix of Cohen's

> Leonard Cohen is one of those artists where I tend to much prefer someone else's version of his songs than I do his songs.

I disagree. I’m with whoever it was who said “No one can sing a Leonard Cohen song like Leonard Cohen can’t.” Especially the older and more gravelly he got.

I did enjoy his duet with Sharon Robinson on “Boogie Street”, though.

Here’s a cover of his I like, kind of turned on its head.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8eYJwydTxYA

“We are ugly but we have the music.”

One of the first things I did in New York was to visit the Chelsea Hotel. All the stories.

I’ve always been borderline obsessed with hey that’s no way to say goodbye, so long, Marianne, and later on if it be your will. There are so many other gems I was almost angry when Dylan won a Nobel and not Leonard Cohen. Another musician I enjoy in the same way would be Gainsbourg. Wonder when will the language model overlords understand all of these beauty.

Bird on the Wire and Famous Blue Raincoat are for me basically modern hymns. And these aren't even from his "religious" period.

Also if you've never seen McCabe and Mrs Miller check it out...a great Altman film that makes really good use of Cohen's songs in the soundtrack.

He’s got some great tracks on the movie Natural Born Killers. I’ve always liked “the future”

Check out "Everybody Knows" in Exotica.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotica_(film)

Also McCabe & Mrs. Miller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCabe_%26_Mrs._Miller#Leonard...

No one has mentioned it, the album "I'm Your Fan" is a collection of LC covers by (album order): R.E.M., Ian McCulloch, Pixies, That Petrol Emotion, The Lilac Time, Geoffrey Oryema, James, Jean-Louis Murat, David McComb & Adam Peters, The House of Love, Lloyd Cole, Robert Forster, Peter Astor, Dead Famous People, Bill Pritchard, The Fatima Mansions, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, & John Cale.

Leonard's voice was a presence in my life since I was a baby as my mum adored him. I am very fortunate to have got to see him three times perform. Each was a mind-blowing experience.

I named my son after him, and had to rename my cat after he was born - my cat is now Mr Cohen.

I did not discover him, though, I grew up to the sound of Suzanne and the rest of the Songs, one of the tapes my mother played fairly regularly when I was little. He, along with Tom Waits, was the soundtrack of my childhood and of course something you grow to appreciate more, not less, with age.

I think Suzanne is probably my favorite song of his. It's got one of the most soothing melodies, simple and gently repetitive, undulating, like the river itself. The imagery of Jesus, of the cross as a lonely wooden tower, as a man broken and forsaken, in contrast to a life-affirming personification of nature in Suzanne; the whole river / boat / sailor theme running throughout; it's just very well put together and thematically tight.

Oh, man, you had great parents. Hopefully in other aspects as well.

My mom used to sing Suzanne to my sister and I when we were little. Probably why it’s one of my favorite songs.

Leonard Cohen was a fantastic poet.

Plus, I liked his personality. Totally unpretentious, similar to Johnny Cash. Never got distracted by his fame.

Everyone seems to have forgotten Beautiful Losers, one of the greatest novels ever written:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Losers

Way ahead of its time, both then and now.

Absolutely love the guy. Among the other things have huge collection of his songs on my HD.

He has a secret chord thats quite pleasing.

his songs have traveled with me my whole life but it took me 30+ years to find my favorite:

the future.

things are going to slide (slide) in all directions

won't be nothing (won't be)

nothing you can measure anymore

...

i've seen the nations rise and fall,

i've heard their stories, heard them all

but love's the only engine of survival.

...

and all the lousy little poets coming round

trying to sound like charlie manson

...

give me back the berlin wall

give me stalin and st. paul

i've seen the future, siblings

it is murder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYzPVKg3wyo

the song is from 1992 ...

edit: tried to fix the formatting

Anthem from the same album is also fantastic. This one gets me every time:

Every heart

To love will come

But like a refugee

'Let's sing another song, boys. This one has grown old and bitter.'

It's time to listen to you want it darker.

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