https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/lyrics-mad ... n-an-icon/
The lyrics that made Leonard Cohen an icon
Aimee Ferrier
Mon 15 January 2024 16:15, UK
Leonard Cohen was a rare talent, possessing the ability to tap into the human experience with a deeply profound sensibility, exploring love, death, religion, sex, conflict and identity through his unwaveringly beautiful songs. Born in 1934, Cohen penned poetry and novels before he began setting his writing to music, releasing his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, in 1967.
Over the span of six decades, Cohen made 15 albums, all of which express his incredible skill for songwriting, channelling a mixture of potent emotion, wit, cynicism and romance with his pen. That’s what transformed Cohen into such a unique voice in folk music – his penchant for blending eloquent metaphors, often using biblical imagery, with humourous, self-hating lines that made his pieces so human and memorable.
Cohen exposed his feelings to the listener without a drop of hesitancy – even when he risked revealing his most maudlin, woeful thoughts. It takes much strength to be so honest and introspective, yet by wrapping up his meditations on humanity with a grounded sense of humour, Cohen reminds us of one of life’s main saviours in moments of despair.
Beginning with his entry onto the folk scene in the 1960s, Cohen’s preoccupation with women, whom he seemed to treat like magnificent otherworldly beings, is abundantly clear from the first track on his debut album. ‘Suzanne’, taken from The Songs of Leonard Cohen, perfectly demonstrates Cohen’s fascination with womanhood, seeing it as some sort of an enigma he cannot fully crack. Blending eroticism, religion, and subtly humorous lines, such as “And you know that she’s half-crazy/ But that’s why you want to be there,” the song is the perfect introduction to Cohen’s subsequent oeuvre.
His 1971 album, Songs of Love and Hate, features many of Cohen’s most beautiful pieces, including some incredibly depressing moments like ‘Avalanche’, ‘Dress Rehearsal Drag’ and ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’, which rely less on humour. On the latter, Cohen manages to convey heartwrenching anguish as he comes to realise that his ex-lover’s new man is perhaps better for her than he ever could’ve been. “Thanks for the trouble/ You took from her eyes/ I thought it was there for good/ So I never tried.”
Cohen’s obsession with romance was everpresent in his work, and he was unafraid to explore the links between deep human connection, sex, and the self. He discussed a sexual encounter between himself and Janis Joplin in ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’, where he so gracefully sings the bleak yet funny line, “You told me again, you preferred handsome men/ But for me you would make an exception.” However, a wittier track that is too good not to highlight is ‘Is This What You Wanted?’. Cohen seems to wink at us as he shamelessly frames himself as less than his lover, using many sexual references to illustrate his point, “You were K-Y Jelly/ I was Vaseline.” Cohen’s ability to slip in cheeky, self-aware lines among slices of pure poetic genius never fails to be unbelievably impressive.
Politics was a subject that Cohen also sunk his teeth into frequently, with ‘There Is A War’ from the same album illuminating the innate battle between good and evil that defines our society. One of the most poignant lines from the track is, “There is a war between the ones who say there is a war/ And the ones who say that there isn’t.” No matter how hard we try to fight injustice, Cohen suggests that the powers of good and evil are both incredibly strong – neither can truly be defeated.
On ‘Everybody Knows’, released in 1988, Cohen continued to use his lyrics to dissect the state of the world. The track is one of the singer’s most hopeless; the first verse includes the lines, “Everybody knows the war is over/ Everybody knows the good guys lost/ Everybody knows the fight was fixed/ The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.” These lines might seem obvious and rather simply written, yet they encapsulate everything Cohen needs to say with accessible immediacy.
A few years later, Cohen released ‘Anthem’, one of his most well-known songs that features the powerful lyric, “There is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” Here, he offers up a moment of optimism, suggesting that there is potential for us to find enlightenment and hopefulness after pain and suffering. Even in Cohen’s darker moments, it was hard not to find a glimmer of comedy or perhaps enthusiasm for the multitudinous nature of the human experience.
As Cohen entered the next century, he continued to move between politically potent and self-deprecating tales, with songs like ‘Anyhow’ seeing Cohen humorously beg, “I know you have to hate me/ But could you hate me less?” Yet, You Want It Darker, released shortly before his death, was the perfect tribute to a life of searching for meaning, understanding, love and devotion.
He finds peace with himself on ‘Leaving the Table’, where he declares, “I don’t need a reason/ For what I became/I’ve got these excuses/They’re tired and lame/ I don’t need a pardon, no, no, no, no, no/There’s no one left to blame/I’m leaving the table/I’m out of the game.” On the album’s title track, he enters darker territory – hence the name – confronting the end of his life (“I’m ready, my Lord”) while questioning how a benevolent God could allow so much suffering, alluding to the Holocaust, (“They’re lining up the prisoners/ And the guards are taking aim”).
Cohen seemed to understand what it meant to be human-like few others. His experience as a poet allowed him to access feelings that are often hard to translate, transforming them into beautiful synergies of knowing and confusion, pain and pleasure, sorrow and humour. Talents like Cohen come along once in a blue moon with words as powerful as scripture or prayer that can completely transform our lives.
Cheers,
Andrew
