Songs of Love and Hate

The first time I ever heard a Leonard Cohen song was on Judy Collins' fabulous 1965 LP, In My Life. Her version of "Suzanne" has become the definitive version, but what jumped out at me was the horrifyingly dark "Dress Rehearsal Rag." My father was dying of cancer; in fact, he would die about a month later. The song's darkness seemed real and realistic to me. So I enjoyed his own albums, Leonard Cohen (1967) and Songs from a Room (1969), when they arrived on the scene.

But the darkness that first attracted me to Leonard was more powerfully expressed on Songs of Love and Hate (1971), on which "Dress Rehearsal Rag" finally appeared. "Famous Blue Raincoat" stops short of suicide as a solution, but presents an almost equally bleak view of contemporary life. Then there's the historical version of the darkness in "Joan of Arc" and the "old and bitter" one, "Let's Sing Another Song, Boys."

I lost track of Leonard after that, and then rediscovered him with the release of, in Jack Stanton's words, "the incredibly fabulous" The Future in 1993. (Shortly thereafter, I also discovered Jennifer Warnes' stunning Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (or, colloquially, Jenny Sings Lenny). I had tickets for Leonard's 1993 show here in Minneapolis, but was called out of town for work and missed the show.

I had resigned myself to never seeing Leonard when the announcement of his spring 2009 show came along. Alice and I got tickets, and we saw Leonard at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis, and it was certainly one of the greatest concerts ever. As many of you probably already know, Leonard is a magical, charismatic performer, capable of achieving great intimacy with each member of the audience, even in a hall with seating for 5,000. Heck, even with an audience numbering in the millions, as at the Isle of Wight in 1970. And, the sound was so good that people were laughing at all the right moments to punch lines in songs like "I'm Your Man."

More recently, I had the chance to see and hear the CD and DVD of that Isle of Wight performance. My God. It is even more wonderful than I might have hoped. Coming from the era of Songs of Love and Hate, it captures one of the two essential Leonard Cohens--in this case, the one from 1970-1971. And then there's the Leonard of The Future and the many live recordings from the '90s on into the 21st century.

If you want or need an introduction to Leonard Cohen, here's the best of:


LPs


1. The Future

2) Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

3) Songs of Love and Hate


4) Cohen Live--1994 release of highlights from the 1993 tour

5) Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes (Jenny Sings Lenny)

Songs of Leonard Cohen (and the signature version)

1. "Sing Another Song, Boys" from Songs of Love and Hate and/or Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight. It's the same live performance on both discs.

2. "Light As A Breeze" from The Future

3. "The Future" from The Future. Incredible. "Give me crack and anal sex/Take the only tree that's left/And stuff it up the hole in your culture." That's within the first minute out of six minutes of horrifying imagery.

4. "The Partisan" from Songs from a Room and/or Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight


5. "Dress Rehearsal Rag" from Songs of Love and Hate. Judy Collins' version is also highly recommended.

6. "Democracy" from The Future

7. "Famous Blue Raincoat" from Songs of Love and Hate. Jennifer Warnes' version is also highly recommended.

8. "Take This Waltz." The version from Live in London is preferred to the original on I'm Your Man.

9. "Alexandra Leaving" from Ten New Songs


10. "First We Take Manhattan." Jennifer Warnes' version is preferred.

11. "Last Year's Man" from Songs of Love and Hate

12. "Love Calls You By Your Name" from Songs of Love and Hate

13. "Go No More A-Roving" from Dear Heather

14. "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" from Songs of Leonard Cohen and/or Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight and/or Cohen Live. Each version has its delights. I might prefer the more recent version on Cohen Live with its beautiful guitar solo by Bob Metzger, but on the other hand its hard not to love the more venomous vocals from the old days.

15. "I'm Your Man." I prefer the more recent live performances to the original from I'm Your Man.

16. "Dance Me to the End of Love." Again, the live performances are preferred to the original from Various Positions.

17. "Who By Fire?" Ditto. The original is on New Skin for an Old Ceremony.

18. "Stranger Song" from Songs of Leonard Cohen and/or Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight.

19. "Joan of Arc" from Songs of Love and Hate

20. "The Sisters of Mercy" from Songs of Leonard Cohen and/or Cohen Live


21. "Tonight Will Be Fine" from Songs from a Room

22. "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" from Songs from a Room

23. "Hallelujah." Jeff Buckley's version is much preferred, and do yourself a favor and check out Jeff Buckley generally. Wow. The main recording is called Grace.

24. "If It Be Your Will." Lots of people have recorded this. I like Jann Arden's version.

25. "You Know Who I Am" from Songs from a Room