#195 Leonard Cohen, 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' (1967)

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Leonard Cohen was an acclaimed poet and novelist in the mid-‘60s, but he was keen to set his writing to music. Cohen had played in a Country band when he was a teen. He had huge plans to go to Nashville to become a Country singer, but instead, found himself entrenched in the New York Folk scene. Thanks to his song, ‘Suzanne,’ Cohen came to the attention of John Hammond, a man that’s appeared a few times in this list as the man that originally signed and championed artists such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Billie Holiday. Hammond signed him to Columbia Records and was due to produce, but had to pull out due to illness. John Simon took over instead.

Cohen’s intention for the record was sparse music to support his lyrics. He and Simon had different ideas about the production and they often fought over the overblown production. Cohen managed to get some of Simon’s production stripped, but in some cases it wasn’t possible. The result, however, is this record featuring some of the greatest stories and lyrics of all time. Cohen was a real storyteller. His music is well thought out and very considered (listen to the ‘Revisionist History’ podcast episode ‘Hallelujah’ to see just how thought and and considered it was). This record contains some of his finest songs; ‘Suzanne,’ ‘So Long, Marianne,’ ‘Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye’ and ‘Sisters Of Mercy’ amongst them. His voice on this record is much higher than it would come to be later on in his career. It’s a gentle record, that is, for the most part, as sparse as Cohen wanted it. A true folk classic and a typical New York record from this Canadian native.

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