[HN Gopher] Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall
___________________________________________________________________
Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall
Author : pseudolus
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-09-19 18:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| pseudolus wrote:
| http://archive.today/i4EDT
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Here's hoping that some HN users discover Leonard Cohen via this
| thread! For me it was life changing.. up there with the impact of
| Glass, Ali Farka Toure, the genre of Flamenco in and of itself,
| Simon Shaheen, Ennio Morricone, Goran Bregovic, Yann Tiersen,
| Islands, etc, on me. (although a lot of these aren't really
| related to each other, just sort of speaking to that "musical
| impact" on a person)
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Whats the best start or way to go to discover Cohen for a newb?
| pseudolus wrote:
| Here's a Youtube video ("A Guide to Leonard Cohen") that came
| out right after he died and provides a brief bio and
| discusses some of his work: https://youtu.be/rLQD_kugBBM
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| Maybe one of his later in life live performance albums (Live
| in Dublin or Live in London)would be a good place to start,
| if you don't mind spending an hour of audio listening. He's
| personable, performs his greatest hits, and feels like a man
| demonstrating his life's work.
| beezlewax wrote:
| Not the poster you asked but I'd say.. Start at or near the
| beginning. Later stuff has some gnarly sounding synths and
| arrangements that might not sound all that palatable to the
| modern ear (very 80s).
|
| For me I first heard him via his album "Songs of Love and
| Hate". I found it in my dads record collection after a
| funeral of a close family member.
|
| It's still my favourite.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Pretty sure I first found out about Cohen (and Pixies!) via
| Pump Up The Volume (1990). Fantastic movie. I thought the
| Concrete Blonde Everybody Knows cover was good, but then I
| dug and found the real thing and was blown away..
| jzb wrote:
| FWIW I think they're comparable, but just very different.
| Johnette Napolitano's voice is fantastic, and she really
| gets to stretch out on "Everybody Knows". As good as the
| recorded version is, hearing Concrete Blonde do it live
| was amazing. I saw them in 1993 in St. Louis and that
| show is still in my top 10 concerts, ever.
| Supernaut wrote:
| > synths and arrangements that might not sound all that
| palatable to the modern ear
|
| Are you referring to _I 'm Your Man_? Because I'd say that
| it's his single most accessible collection of songs, and
| that his adoption of modern instrumentation was a genius
| move. The backing track for "First We Take Manhattan"
| sounds like New Order!
| xhevahir wrote:
| It's not modern instrumentation. It's a Technics arranger
| keyboard like the kind you might have heard in an airport
| smoking lounge. He started using them because they
| allowed him to build an arrangement without the help of
| other musicians. They've always sounded chintzy to me but
| they worked for him because of the cabaret nature of his
| songs.
| Supernaut wrote:
| His Technics is used in places, such as "Tower of Song".
| But "First We Take Manhattan" was recorded using a
| Synclavier, which at the time was as cutting-edge as you
| could get.
| xhevahir wrote:
| Interesting. I didn't know that about the Synclavier. I
| still think the production in his later stuff will sound
| very quaint to anyone encountering it for the first time.
|
| He was a really dedicated user of those Technics
| machines. He and Wesley Willis, lol.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| His later tour stuff is great as another commented mentioned,
| but I'd say maybe give 'I'm Your Man' a whirl (it has
| Everybody Knows and Take This Waltz). If you don't like it
| then you probably won't like LC in general (although you
| maybe could still like Hallelujah as that one has sort of
| taken over the mainstream consciousness. Definitely a great
| song, and I'm in the minority probably being that I dislike
| most of the Hallelujah "covers", preferring the LC original).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Your_Man_(Leonard_Cohen_.
| ..
|
| Songs from a Room from 1990 is also pretty great, with one of
| the most beautiful songs I've ever heard, The Partisan.
|
| His early stuff is a little different, mostly due to his
| voice being different tonally and being much younger (just
| his later stuff with the gruff voice comes off kind of
| different, but stylistically his music has stayed pretty
| consistent-- he has explored and incorporated world music
| throughout his career for instance), but you can't go wrong
| with his first album from 1967, with classics like Suzanne
| and So Long, Marianne.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Leonard_Cohen
| Ma8ee wrote:
| I guess it is just a typo, but Songs from a Room is from
| 1969. For me his first three albums: Songs of Leonard
| Cohen, Songs from a Room, and Songs of Love and Hate made a
| kind of trilogy. I've always loved these ones, while his
| other albums more grown on me over time.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| You know I thought it was a very early one, but I looked
| it up on Google and it said 1990 so I just blindly
| accepted it. Must have been a reference to a reissue
| perhaps..
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| _Suzanne_ is quintessential young Cohen: written as poetry
| before he became a singer, put to simple but enjoyable
| music, personal but relatable in its theme and quite
| evocative of the 60s.
|
| I think the best way to understand Cohen is that he is a
| legitimate poetry writer who realised early on that his
| voice and good look could earn him more money as a singer.
| He is in a lot of way a better Dylan except giving him the
| Nobel would have been less insulting to Roth.
| throw310822 wrote:
| I think I' have to share my favourite cover of "Take this
| waltz" then:
|
| https://youtu.be/F2_6XXmIP2U?si=2XyKxNCd9rPq8Im2
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Wow! What a talented young man, and incredible rendition.
| And the piano improvisation toward the end was excellent
| and unexpected. This made my day, thank you.
| mhb wrote:
| Who By Fire
|
| The little-known story of Leonard Cohen's concert tour to the
| front lines of the Yom Kippur War
|
| https://mattifriedman.com/who-by-fire/
| jzb wrote:
| I'd start with _The Future_ (1992), _I 'm Your Man_ (1988),
| and _Ten New Songs_ (2001). Those are, IMO, his most
| accessible and there 's a very good chance you already know a
| few of those songs and haven't realized you know those songs.
| (e.g., "Everybody Knows" from _I 'm Your Man_ has been in a
| few movies, as have "The Future", and "Waiting for a Miracle"
| from _The Future_.)
|
| Note that there's a really stark difference in his voice
| starting in the mid-80s. His early stuff doesn't sound quite
| right to me because I equate Leonard Cohen with his voice in
| the later albums.
| xhevahir wrote:
| I started with I'm Your Man and it's probably still my
| favorite but there are good reasons why his best known work
| is on the first few albums.
| rwmj wrote:
| The Best Of Leonard Cohen a classic early collection:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_Leonard_Cohen
|
| But his albums, especially the early ones, are worth getting
| because of the extraordinary standard of both songwriting and
| production (by Bob Johnston).
| ghotli wrote:
| Suzanne
| nullhole wrote:
| "The Best of Leonard Cohen" isn't a bad place. It's from mid-
| career, so not exhaustive, but most of the songs on it are
| gems.
| keithasaurus wrote:
| I learned about Leonard Cohen by watching the movie McCabe
| and Mrs Miller. Recommended.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| I learned about him by reading (but no audio...) and then
| watching Barney's version.
|
| A great songwriter, a great book, a very nice movie.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| On my watchlist!
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| Live in London is a great representation of how he sounded
| toward the end of his touring career, and I think it is a
| great place to start. IMO, there's not a bad track on the
| album.
| bregma wrote:
| First you take Manhattan. Then you take Berlin. You want it
| darker?
| shagie wrote:
| I'm fond of the R.E.M. cover of First We Take Manhattan
| (which also was my introduction to Cohen).
| worik wrote:
| His first two albums are a revelation
|
| If you can cope with "man and guitar", nothing else
|
| It is the songs. Just the songs
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I think either this, or his last two albums.
|
| The Hills[1] is just sublime.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FesS3D-7o1g
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| _Live in London_ is a great album to atart with - he was in
| his seventies, doing a multi-year world tour, and still
| sounding absolutely at the top of his game.
|
| _I 'm your Man_, like some of his other 80s albums, can be a
| bit synth-heavy - which may be surprising if you've only
| heard _Suzanne_. I 'd recommend it, although I dislike the
| final track ( _Jazz Police_ ).
|
| His final album, _You Want it Darker_ is elegiac and sadly
| lovely. Probably not the place to start though.
| karaterobot wrote:
| In my experience, the best way to discover Leonard Cohen's
| music is while driving back from a high school club
| convention in 1996, and the _cool_ teacher starts playing
| _New Skin for the Old Ceremony_ on cassette. And you 're
| like: "this isn't Nirvana, what is it?!"
|
| BUT, if you can't swing that, there's a great Best Of album
| that is 100% bangers. Slow, dark, introspective bangers.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Hah, love it.
| mklepaczewski wrote:
| I don't know about the best way to discover him, but nobody
| yet mentioned "Famous blue raincoat" nor "Dance me to the end
| of love" and I just couldn't let them go unnoticed. "Take
| this waltz" and "Hallelujah" are also great.
| seemaze wrote:
| Those are all wonderful songs and included in the 2002
| compilation 'The Essential Leonard Cohen', which
| incidentally is how I discovered his music.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I don't think it matters where you start, but start with the
| expectation that a lot of the music is really more spoken
| word poetry set to music, the emphasis is on the lyrics and
| their layered metaphor, and so the music strongly benefits
| from repeated listening.
|
| There's stuff you won't unpack until you've listened to a
| song dozens of times.
| scrame wrote:
| just do the greatest hits, and maybe songs of love and hate.
| coldpie wrote:
| The first thing I listened to from him was his very last
| album, "You Want it Darker", released less than a month
| before he passed. I don't know whether it's the best way to
| start, but I absolutely love the album, and it made a huge
| impact on me. It's one of the most emotional sets of music
| I've ever heard. You can hear his voice straining to its
| limits, he's putting everything he's got into it.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| The posthumous Thanks for the Dance is a fantastic album as
| well. If anything, even more emotional than You Want It
| Darker.
| eliaspro wrote:
| I grew up with Leonard's music in the 90s, but it was only
| after his death that I learned about his non-musical poetry
| through another favorite of mine - the Swedish group "First
| Aid Kit". They did an absolutely breathtaking tribute show to
| honor their idol, where they arranged his music and poetry
| with a few of their friends: https://youtu.be/of_hZoVvqaM
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| My favourite cover of "Hallelujah" is the yiddish one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1fERC_504
| more_corn wrote:
| There was a recent article about hallelujah.
|
| https://subtledigressions.substack.com/p/hallelujah-
| leonard-...
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Nope, doesn't work with Yiddish/German language, too abrupt
| and hard. I would say Hebrew since it flows naturally with
| the word Hallelujah, but even that...
| qwertox wrote:
| I dislike "Hallelujah" and am not aware of other songs from
| him. There's the line "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I
| can sigh eternally" in Pennyroyal Tea, which made me not judge
| him, and then there was Chris Cornell's daughter Toni singing
| it for her father [0], which was really moving.
|
| What am I missing out on?
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/w5-M1lwLvDU?t=75
| gmac wrote:
| It's funny, I quite viscerally hate Cohen's original
| Hallelujah, but I first encountered it as sung by Jeff
| Buckley, and that version I absolutely love.
|
| Otherwise I like his first album (Songs of Leonard Cohen)
| when I'm in the mood for something depressing, but everything
| else of his I've heard just sounds to me like a drunk on a
| street corner with a Casio keyboard.
| SECProto wrote:
| > everything else of his I've heard just sounds to me like
| a drunk on a street corner with a Casio keyboard
|
| Though I disagree with the characterization, there's a
| beauty in it, too
| indigodaddy wrote:
| I wouldn't discount exploring further if you disliked
| Hallelujah, as the song is a bit niche even against LC's
| larger library. Find a best of album and give it a go.
| 'Everybody Knows' and many others that you may better regard
| will certainly be on it.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Pretty much every track is a hit, but here are some four
| random personal favourites:
|
| - Everybody Knows https://youtu.be/Gxd23UVID7k
|
| - First We Take Manhattan https://youtu.be/JTTC_fD598A
|
| - Famous Blue Raincoat https://youtu.be/ohk3DP5fMCg
|
| - Who By Fire https://youtu.be/ilGahIwQEQ0
|
| Obviously too many to list here though, just pick up any
| album. By virtue of the fact that he was an incredible
| songwriter, his songs have such wonderful covers.
|
| The Tori Amos cover of Famous Blue Raincoat [0] is one of my
| favourites, and this cover of Who by Fire by PJ Harvey & Tim
| Phillips gives me chills every time [1] (also the theme for
| Bad Sisters which is an amazing series). Also, pretty much
| every Canadian who was an adult in 2010 has an emotional
| connection to the k.d. lang performance of Hallelujah at the
| Vancouver olympics [2].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/PMSbICWbjBw
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/PPY_MqCfMqE
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/tcOQSk_cMO0
| indigodaddy wrote:
| one of my favorite LC covers, Chelsea Hotel, by one of my
| favorite artists, lead singer for the Belgian band
| Intergalactic Lovers:
|
| https://youtu.be/BGKIA7QUEGY?si=d_uzxaJOmiNEAJAm
|
| If you dig her, check out this Intergalactic Lovers
| concert, basically most of the songs from Little Heavy
| Burdens:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVUW5t1HK_Y
| sonofhans wrote:
| Concrete Blonde did a great cover of Everybody Knows --
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Fb4K8pNmg
|
| Johnette is a poet herself and a fantastic vocalist; she
| keeps the cynicism and the heartbreak. The cover has always
| _felt_ like a Cohen song to me.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Really enjoyed that, cheers.
| mrtksn wrote:
| When I was backpacking in Germany some many years ago I stumbled
| upon a concert of him and tried to convince some peers to watch
| it, IIRC the venue was suitable to hang around and listen to
| without a ticket, and everybody thought that it was the uncoolest
| thing ever. I still disagree, Leonard Cohen is amazing. Much
| cooler than most rocks stars. I would be happy if his song become
| a thing again.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| My mom dragged me to one of his last concerts and i had similar
| expectations as your peers. Since then he has been my role
| model in terms of coolness.
| wdr1 wrote:
| I saw him perform twice in Los Angeles. Despite being over 70,
| he performed over 3 hours. It was outstanding. Outside of
| seeing U2 at the Sphere, it was the best live events I've ever
| attended.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Leonard Cohen is one of those artists where I tend to much prefer
| someone else's version of his songs than I do his songs.
|
| I wonder how many people were introduced to him in the late 90s
| from The Soprano's opening theme?
| jachee wrote:
| For me it was Rufus Wainright's cover of _Hallelujah_ from
| Shrek. I agree though, that his songwriting is often most-
| elevated in someone else's hands.
| fracus wrote:
| Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah is one of if not the best
| cover song ever period.
| jancsika wrote:
| At least in terms of emotive distance between original and
| cover, I'd say Joe Cocker's version of "With a Little Help
| from My Friends" beats it.
|
| Cocker's version was so compelling they didn't even bother
| doing the little flat-VI coda from the original. That's the
| musical equivalent of going out for a coffee during Final
| Jeopardy because you're so far ahead.
| fipar wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's John Cale singing in the movie.
|
| A quick search tells me Wainright's version is on the
| soundtrack.
|
| I'm down with some nasty bug now and on antibiotics so I may
| be completely off, but I stand by it being Cale on the movie.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| I like the Wainright cover, but I think there's a direct line
| from there to Hallelujah becoming a Christmas song. Not that
| it isn't beautiful, but the song as written is also tinged
| with irony and without Cohen's winking mixup of the sacred
| and the profane, it sounds kind of schmaltzy.
|
| Is that pretentious? Hell yeah. Cohen brings out the
| pretentious side of me because he was such a brilliant writer
| and it bums me out when his work gets mistaken for
| platitudes.
| sqlck wrote:
| It's a common mistake, but this wasn't him
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_Up_This_Morning
|
| His song 'Nevermind' was used as the opening theme for season 2
| of True Detective. It has a similar mood imo.
| dylan604 wrote:
| We don't know this True Detective Season 2 that you speak of.
| It went from the first season to the third season. We've all
| agreed that season 2 never happened. You must have missed the
| memo. It should be pinned at the top of your Slack channel.
| It should definitely be listed in HN's policies.
|
| I always thought the Alabama3 track was just a remix of
| Cohen's
| dghf wrote:
| > Leonard Cohen is one of those artists where I tend to much
| prefer someone else's version of his songs than I do his songs.
|
| I disagree. I'm with whoever it was who said "No one can sing a
| Leonard Cohen song like Leonard Cohen can't." Especially the
| older and more gravelly he got.
|
| I did enjoy his duet with Sharon Robinson on "Boogie Street",
| though.
| technotarek wrote:
| Here's a cover of his I like, kind of turned on its head.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8eYJwydTxYA
| te_chris wrote:
| What a writer. We were lucky to share the same planet for a
| while.
|
| 1000 kisses deep, if it be your will, you want it darker, tower
| of song, ain't no cure for love, anthem, and on and on. Most
| songwriters will never write one of those, but he just kept on
| going.
|
| He was our man, our searching, restless, yearning man.
| FpUser wrote:
| Absolutely love the guy. Among the other things have huge
| collection of his songs on my HD.
| dguest wrote:
| This surprised me: ...the rock era unfolded as
| ... a series of begats (Elvis begat the Beatles, the Beatles
| begat Jann Wenner, etc.) involving identity-famished teenagers
| and their heroes ... Cohen is absent from this narrative for one
| simple reason: He was the same age as Elvis.
|
| I had to look this up: Actually he was a few months older (born
| in 1934 while Elvis was 1935).
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >involving identity-famished teenagers
|
| Transposed to HN it would be:
|
| The era of software unfolded as a series of frameworks,
| involving identity-famished nerds and their languages...
| allturtles wrote:
| This seems to overlook the more obvious reason he is absent
| from that narrative: he was never all that popular. His only
| top 100 hit, for "Hallelujah", came in 2016, after his
| death.[0]
|
| [0]: https://www.billboard.com/artist/leonard-cohen/; compare
| to Elvis https://www.billboard.com/artist/elvis-presley/,
| Beatles https://www.billboard.com/artist/the-beatles/
| vjerancrnjak wrote:
| Yep, the album Various Positions on which Hallelujah appeared
| was not even released in the US by Columbia, they released it
| in Europe instead.
|
| I think it was only after Bob Dylan covered Hallelujah ~1988
| at one of his live concerts, he was the first to cover it
| (John Cale did it in 1991), that the song and the album
| exploded in popularity.
| mannyv wrote:
| 'Let's sing another song, boys. This one has grown old and
| bitter.'
| chikenf00t wrote:
| I highly recommend Cohen's The Book of Longing. It has carried me
| over the years through mountains of heartbreak. It was one of the
| first poetry books that I ever read and introduced me into a
| whole new realm of literature.
| exabrial wrote:
| He has a secret chord thats quite pleasing.
| bregma wrote:
| I once listened to an interview with him in which he was asked if
| he always wore black.
|
| His response was that no, earlier in the day he was wearing grey
| but it clashed with the rain so he went home and changed.
| algem wrote:
| He's got some great tracks on the movie Natural Born Killers.
| I've always liked "the future"
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Check out "Everybody Knows" in _Exotica_.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotica_(film)
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Also _McCabe & Mrs. Miller_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCabe_%26_Mrs._Miller#Leonard.
| ..
| barrkel wrote:
| I named my son after him, and had to rename my cat after he was
| born - my cat is now Mr Cohen.
|
| I did not discover him, though, I grew up to the sound of Suzanne
| and the rest of the Songs, one of the tapes my mother played
| fairly regularly when I was little. He, along with Tom Waits, was
| the soundtrack of my childhood and of course something you grow
| to appreciate more, not less, with age.
|
| I think Suzanne is probably my favorite song of his. It's got one
| of the most soothing melodies, simple and gently repetitive,
| undulating, like the river itself. The imagery of Jesus, of the
| cross as a lonely wooden tower, as a man broken and forsaken, in
| contrast to a life-affirming personification of nature in
| Suzanne; the whole river / boat / sailor theme running
| throughout; it's just very well put together and thematically
| tight.
| tway_GdBRwW wrote:
| Oh, man, you had great parents. Hopefully in other aspects as
| well.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I get a bit choked up when I see his mural in Montreal:
| https://www.mtl.org/en/what-to-do/culture-arts-heritage/leon...
| ziyao_w wrote:
| "We are ugly but we have the music."
|
| One of the first things I did in New York was to visit the
| Chelsea Hotel. All the stories.
|
| I've always been borderline obsessed with hey that's no way to
| say goodbye, so long, Marianne, and later on if it be your will.
| There are so many other gems I was almost angry when Dylan won a
| Nobel and not Leonard Cohen. Another musician I enjoy in the same
| way would be Gainsbourg. Wonder when will the language model
| overlords understand all of these beauty.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Bird on the Wire and Famous Blue Raincoat are for me basically
| modern hymns. And these aren't even from his "religious"
| period.
|
| Also if you've never seen McCabe and Mrs Miller check it
| out...a great Altman film that makes really good use of Cohen's
| songs in the soundtrack.
| jaeh wrote:
| his songs have traveled with me my whole life but it took me 30+
| years to find my favorite:
|
| the future.
|
| things are going to slide (slide) in all directions
|
| won't be nothing (won't be)
|
| nothing you can measure anymore
|
| ...
|
| i've seen the nations rise and fall,
|
| i've heard their stories, heard them all
|
| but love's the only engine of survival.
|
| ...
|
| and all the lousy little poets coming round
|
| trying to sound like charlie manson
|
| ...
|
| give me back the berlin wall
|
| give me stalin and st. paul
|
| i've seen the future, siblings
|
| it is murder
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYzPVKg3wyo
|
| the song is from 1992 ...
|
| edit: tried to fix the formatting
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Anthem from the same album is also fantastic. This one gets me
| every time:
|
| Every heart
|
| To love will come
|
| But like a refugee
| harel wrote:
| Leonard's voice was a presence in my life since I was a baby as
| my mum adored him. I am very fortunate to have got to see him
| three times perform. Each was a mind-blowing experience.
| doe88 wrote:
| Love this song - The Partisan (le chant des partisans) - WW2
| resistance's song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs5hOhI4pEE
| neom wrote:
| My fav doc, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, A Way of Life (1994)
| was Narrated by Leonard Cohen and it's soooo good.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg8ikDKL_zs
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Leonard Cohen was a fantastic poet.
|
| Plus, I liked his personality. Totally unpretentious, similar to
| Johnny Cash. Never got distracted by his fame.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-19 23:01 UTC)