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Legend: Leonard Cohen

As the veteran poet/author/musician undertakes his first tour for 15 years, we welcome back one of the greatest – and most misunderstood – figures in modern music…

1956-1967 Impressing girls

Unusually among major recording artists, Leonard Cohen (born in 1934 in Montreal, Canada) was already a notable author before taking up songwriting in his thirties. True, he had learned to play guitar at 13, with the noble motive of impressing girls, but by the time fabled producer and A&R man John Hammond Sr signed him to Columbia Records, Cohen had several acclaimed volumes of fiction and verse behind him.

1967-71 Sexual politics

Cohen was once described as “the master of erotic despair” and his first album, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, shows why. While hordes of contemporaries made clumsy attempts to be poetic and profound, Cohen gracefully captured those qualities through shrewd understatement and a piercing insight into the affairs of men and women. The politics of sex was his principal theme, and he established himself as the subject’s laureate. Over the next four years he would release two more albums in a similar vein. His sparse, acoustic sound and sombre vocals gave him an unwarranted reputation as a miserabilist among those who hadn’t paid attention.

1974-1985 Death of a Ladies’ Man

Through the 1970s, Cohen’s work became increasingly hard-edged and mordant, never more so than on his 1977 album Death of a Ladies’ Man. This reflected the turmoil in Cohen’s personal life and his fraught collaboration with producer Phil Spector. At the end of the decade, Recent Songs saw a return to both his former ‘gypsy folk’ sound and a semblance of calm, and, in the mid 1980s, Various Positions was greeted with rapture and relief by devotees.

1988-present I’m Your Fan

Two things were to seal Cohen’s legendary status: the release of the 1988 album I’m Your Man, a deeply moving masterpiece; and 1991’s tribute record I’m Your Fan, on which artists such as R.E.M., Nick Cave, John Cale and The Pixies acknowledged their debt to him. Current Cohen acolytes are a diverse bunch, including Rufus Wainwright, Beck, Damien Rice and Keren Ann. However, since 1992’s The Future, record releases have been rare. Whether his recent decision to return to touring after 15 years was prompted by the alleged theft of more than $5m by a long-term business associate, only he knows. But if so, his loss is our gain.

Story by David Bennun


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