In the world of popular music there are few figures as enigmatic as Leonard Cohen. The Canadian singer/songwriter/poet/novelist/ has been a figure of both controversy and mystery in the musical and literary circles he moves in. His mystique is such that even his backup singer of recent years has been able to release a disc, seemingly based on nothing more than her association with him.
While his music has always been very well received in Europe, he has never quite had the same popular success in North America that other folk singer-troubadours have managed. Perhaps it is because he was a poet first and a musician second, or maybe because his subject matter was difficult and uncomfortable to listen to and think about, North Americans, even his fellow Canadians, have never wholeheartedly embraced him.
The forthcoming DVD, Leonard Cohen Under Review 1934–1977, is an examination of the man and his work through his early years as a poet, and the first ten years of his music career. Interviews with music critics, musicians who have played with him, and the producers of his first four albums (Phil Spector, who produced Death Of A Ladies Man, Cohen's fifth album, was unavailable for interviews due to being brought up on murder charges) talk about each of the first five releases in depth, analysing what they did and didn't like about each one.
First a brief history is told by his official biographer Ira Nadel and archival film clips are used to illustrate some of the highlights of his early days as a poet and novelist. How little Cohen knew about music and the music business is revealed succinctly by his reason for going into it: to make extra money because he wasn't getting enough money to live on as a poet and novelist (long before the days of the million dollar advances).
The albums The Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Songs From A Room, Songs Of Love And Hate, New Skin For An Old Ceremony, and Death Of A Ladies Man are all put under a magnifying glass. The dissections follow identical patterns in that each starts with an overview of where Cohen was in his career and his life at that time, followed by the circumstances of the recording (Songs From A Room was written at an isolated farmhouse near Nashville for instance), and then a look at the songs from each album that are distinguishing marks in his career — songs like "Susanne", "Bird On A Wire", "Who Will Light The Fire", "Chelsea Hotel 2", plus others that anybody familiar with Cohen will recognise immediately. Each person has a go at what they think of the song, and whether or not it was significant in Cohen's career.
Article comments
1 - Graham Lester
I think Death of a Ladies Man must be one of the most underrated albums of all time. Two of the tracks ("I left a Woman Waiting" and "Paper Thin Hotel Walls") are pure gold, and several others are pretty close behind.