Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Leonard Cohen
“If you think Leonard Cohen is old now, try to imagine how old he was when he was young. In 1966, folk chanteuse Judy Collins turned the thirty-two-year-old into a hot rumor by recording his poem-set-to-music ‘Suzanne’. Cohen had two novels and four slim volumes of verse on his dossier. He sported suit jackets, short hair and a formidable five o'clock shadow, and he hailed, ooh la la, from Montreal. No wonder hippies ten years his junior ate up his world-weary roué act.” — Robert Christgau, Rolling Stone
“What's most striking about these songs … [are] his portraits of a world dominated by love and lust, rage and need, compassion and betrayal. While the relationship between men and women was often the framework for Cohen's songs (he didn't earn the nickname 'the master of erotic despair' for nothing), he didn't write about love; rather, Cohen used the never-ending thrust and parry between the sexes as a jumping off point for his obsessive investigation of humanity's occasional kindness and frequent atrocities (both emotional and physical).” — Mark Deming, AllMusic
“Cohen performed with the sparest of instrumentation, highlighting only his own guitar and limited (yet hypnotic and expressive) vocals with only occasional assistance from strings and a rhythm section.… Because of Cohen’s morose, decidedly pop-unfriendly delivery, [his] songs … were praised more for their carefully crafted lyrics than their melodies. While the lyrics are littered with memorable lines … what makes these songs so enduring is the music, which evokes that ‘sitting-in-a-dark-room-alone’ feeling better than any of the countless albums that have followed in its wake.” — Steven Hyden & John Semley, A.V. Club
Favourites: Suzanne • Master Song • Winter Lady • The Stranger Song • So Long, Marianne • Stories Of The Street
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