Leonard Cohen
 In Canada,
Leonard Cohen was already a published novelist and
prize-winning poet, but Columbia's A&R department probably
didn't expect him to become very popular when they signed him.
He was in his mid-thirties (which in the hippie
60's was
dangerously approaching old age) when his first album of angst,
ancient wisdom and sexual longing appeared.
Sombre, sophisticated
and compelling, his debut album, The Songs of Leonard Cohen (1968),
was unlike anything else at the
time. Its lyrics, rich in complex imagery, were sung in a deep,
intimate, hypnotic voice that had the authority of someone used to
being listened to.
The album sold more than 100,000 copies and placed the
unlikely star firmly on the map.
For his follow-up LP, Songs From A Room (1969), Cohen
retreated further into the world of melancholia that characterised
his work. Whereas his debut album had contained highlight tracks
such as Suzanne (originally a 1966 hit for folkie Judy
Collins) and So Long Marianne, his second album was more
low key.
Instead, Cohen crafted a collection of narrative efforts that
enhanced his claims to be a troubadour to rival Bob Dylan.
Throughout the ten tracks he ruminated on the nature of
friendship and more intimate relationships - The Partisan,
a song written during World War II, dissected the patriot's
connection with his country, while The Butcher examined the
relationship between father and son.
There was also a fair degree of ennui of a romantic nature.
"Tonight will be fine" he crooned on the chorus of the
closing track, though he added the rejoinder "for a
while". Nancy, a former muse, came off no better in Seems
So Long Ago, Nancy, wherein her alleged promiscuity was
bandied about.
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