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Songs of Leonard Cohen | 
| Artist: Leonard Cohen
Label: Columbia
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £6.98
You Save: £7.01 (50%)
New (19) Used (3) from £5.74
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 1931
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 704742
UPC: 886970474221
EAN: 0886970474221
ASIN: B000NOKA0S
Release Date: April 23, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 6 to 10 days
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| Tracks:
| • | Suzanne | | • | Master Song | | • | Winter Lady | | • | Stranger Song | | • | Sisters Of Mercy | | • | So Long Marianne | | • | Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye | | • | Stories Of The Street | | • | Teachers | | • | One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong | | • | Store Room | | • | Blessed Is The Memory |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
LEONARD COHEN'S FIRST ALBUM IS ALSO HIS BEST October 29, 2008
I first heard a few songs of Leonard Cohen when I was 16. He was one of my dad's favorite singers and soon became my all-time favorite. His songs - often focusing on religious themes, but also on sexuality (in a non-primitive way unlike many songs nowadays), women and isolation - have a special impact. The usual minimalistic orchestration is legend (only a few albums such as DEATH OF A LADIES' MAN produced by Phil Spector and TEN NEW SONGS break the tradition). My absolute favorite song ONE OF US CANNOT BE WRONG is featured on this unique album. With all the R&B/rap crap played on the radio LEONARD COHEN is a welcome salvation!
An Old Friend April 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
My introduction to Leonard Cohen was on a vinyl CBS sampler which included "Sisters of Mercy". On the basis of that track I bought "Songs of Leonard Cohen" (on vinyl) and many subsequent albums.
As has been said before I think that this album is probably Cohen's strongest overall - there are other gems on many of his albums but no other album contains so many songs which have stood the test of time.
'Suzanne' (and 'Bird on a wire' from 'Songs from a Room') were even covered by Fairport Convention - a band not noted for a shortage of self-penned material.
I tend to disagree with the reviewers who think Cohen is the best interpreter of his music; perhaps at times but generally his voice is the penalty paid for the pleasure of the songs. I think 'I'm Your Man" demonstrates very well the strength of his songs whoever is interpreting them.
My love of his music has however prompted me to replace my older vinyls with CD versions - not least because the vinyls were worn to a shadow of their original condition.
 5x7s95x87 January 29, 2008
I have no idea why there's lyrics in the liner notes for only two of the tracks ("Suzanne" and "The Stranger Song"). Copyright issues? For whatever reason, it's the listener that misses out, as this is a powerful album when it comes to hitting you over the head with words; one that is just begging for analysis by anyone who wants to delve into the mind of the artist. Impeccible vocals, as you'd come to expect considering the album's lofty reputation, but the actual music on the record (i.e. the musical bits) are way more structured and adventurous than I was led to believe. Beautiful, simple guitar playing, subdued ambient passages, sparse crazysounds... I can't explain it most of it. It's amazing nonetheless.
I can only see my rating for this rising in future months/decades.
A WORK OF GENIUS THAT HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME December 11, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This, his first album, is the one for which Cohen is famous (well, almost). It established his reputation in 1968 as a masterful commentator on the vagaries of the human condition, using only his soft, dark voice, the lilting tones of his Spanish guiar and minimial embellishments.
The first song, Suzanne, is also his most well-known, a ballad of unfulfilled longing and tender betrayal. The other stand-out tracks are Sisters of Mercy, So Long Marianne, and Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye. But all the songs on this album are outstanding in their own way and leave a deep impression on those prepared to listen and engage their brains.
Leonard Cohen found his calling after writing a novel, a collection of poetry, and an attempt at stardom as a Country and Western star (strange, but true, although conjuring up an image of Lenny Baby in Stetson hat and cowboy boots shouting 'Yee-Hah!' is a test of anyone's imagination).
At this early stage in his career Cohen was basically singing his poetry in a voice that became progressively deeper over the years, helped by his two pack a day cigarette habit. Not for him the screeching harmonies of today's pop-singers, nor the high-pitched whine of male vocalists who sing as if they have the jaws of a large bull-terrier clamped tightly around their testicles.
I've nothing against that, in the right place, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody of 1975 showed just how good crushed genitals can sound in the right hands. But the anguish of distressed genitalia has never been Cohen's style. His is a laid-back delivery in which classic understatement serves only to emphasise the subtlety of his lyrics.
Admittedly Cohen was not nicknamed the Prince of Gloom for nothing: he tells it how it is, with no affectation, in a voice that sounds remarkably like that of a normal human being. No escapist fantasies here, no massaging the vanities of his audience, and certainly no self-pity. Just beautiful lyrics sung in a soft, mid-brown voice with impeccable diction, with simple melodic guitar accompaniment and occasional backing vocals. But in order to appreciate his music you do need a certain level of intellectual and emotional maturity. It's nothing like the pop music of today, most of which appears to be aimed at an audience with the critical faculties of the average ten-year-old.
Make no mistake, this is music for people who have a functioning brain, and like to use it. If you like the Spice Girls, Kylie Minogue or Katy Melua then you are unlikely to enjoy this album. There is no forced gaiety here, no sentimentality, no attempt to pander to the narcissism of the average human being. It will dampen even the most joyous children's party, induce suicidal tendencies in those already depressed, and would not go down well at your average working-men's club. This might be exclusive enough for you, but the added cache of being a Cohen fan is that few people under the age of 35 have ever heard of him (not many over 35 have either...).
In the 1960s and 70s admiring Lenny Baby's work was the preserve of the intellectually pretentious plus a few perceptive people with no ambition to aspire to pretentions of any kind. Not a good commercial formula, then, and during the 80s most of his rapidly diminishing following of fans would rather listen to his music than pass their appreciation of his art on to their children - almost an entire generation of new fans was thus lost. In the 90s he enjoyed a brief revival of fortunes, engaging with postmodernist culture with The Future. These days his obscurity is inversely proportional to the dedication of his few remaining but steadfastly loyal fans.
Those who admire Cohen's work may still be in a tiny minority (and shrinking) but they don't care what anyone else thinks, and believe they're privy to a secret cultural treasure the rest of humanity chooses to ignore (well, sod the lot of them). I'm with you, Lenny.
If you have an intellect that has managed to struggle through infancy, survived adolescence intact, and entered the twilight zone called adulthood still with some interest in the human condition, then this album might just be what you need. It's ideal for those evenings when the TV is so bad you wonder how you keep the will to live.
The Songs of Leonard Cohen is a powerful testament to the capacity of a strangely gifted individual to enjoy as well as endure the trials and tribulations of life, and still come out smiling. Cohen has a unique understanding of the human condition and a very dry sense of humour - you have to look for it, but it's there (for example, in the studied irony of the Sisters of Mercy).
If you decide to have only one Lenny Baby album in your collection, make it this one. There's a new version out with additional tracks, which is supposed to be digitally enhanced (no, I've no idea what this means either).
Better still, cultivate your appreciation of the genius of Leonard Cohen and buy his entire output. It'll give you something to talk about at parties. If you go to any.
Fine art November 12, 2007
No need to say here how wonderful, and still strange, this record is. Just wanted to add that if, like me, you buy a CD version of it for the first time, you'll need a large white parcel-sticker to put quickly over the back cover. We're used to 60s musicians who do their own (largely awful) paintings: Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Captain Beefheart etc, but this one by Cohen takes the biscuit. A passionate but stoical Darkhaired Lady is gazing upwards, burning in the flames, perhaps, of sexual/religious desire. So corny and naff (and badly done), it's a bizarre contrast to the songs themselves.
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