Leonard Cohen - Sisters of Mercy (5A)

Songs of Leonard Cohen is the debut album of Canadian musician Leonard Cohen. It foreshadowed the future path of his career, with less success in the United States and far better in Europe, reaching #83 on the Billboard chart but achieving gold status only in 1989, while it reached #13 in UK and spent nearly a year and a half in the UK album charts.

Cohen's lonely and emotional songs were informed by his literate approach, part and parcel to a burgeoning singer/songwriter movement in popular music. Seen by later critics as a reaction against the psychedelic band-oriented styles (as were the country-rock developments of 1968 and 1969) enjoying a vogue in 1967, determining whether indeed the singer-songwriters were 'reacting against' the baroque tapestries of Sgt. Pepper or the San Francisco bands is problematic.

Cohen and John Simon, producer and musical director, managed to give the album a distinct sound while also relying on typical sixties effects such as instruments panning from channel to channel. Although Cohen was granted much freedom in the recording process, they did not always agree on how the record should be mixed. Finally, Simon departed for his Christmas holiday and left the final mix to the artist himself. In a 2001 interview Cohen told British music magazine Mojo: "We did have a falling out over the song "Suzanne." He wanted a heavy piano syncopated and maybe drums and I didn't want drums on any of my songs, so that was a bone of contention."


On some of the tracks Cohen was backed by strings, the band Kaleidoscope and Nancy Priddy's vocals. The original producer was John Hammond, who signed Cohen to Columbia, but he was replaced by Simon because of health problems.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Leonard Cohen
• Songs of Leonard Cohen
• acoustic
• Canadian
• Singer
• Songwriter
• Vocal
• Master Song
• Suzanne
• Sisters of Mercy

[lichtbroeder]

@egm555Alive She's right. Many of Cohen's songs use religious imagery, when they aren't really religious. Cohen's music shows us that heaven and hell, flesh and spirit, ecstasy and suffering, spiritual and material, darkness and light, are often intertwined, even closer together than we think. This song was used in the film, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, which is about - prostitutes.

[kiwimale1]

and the name of the record is ....?? have owned it ...but have giving it away ...in the light of the morning ...with flowing long dark hair on the way futher ..

[egm555Alive]

It's most definitely about prostitution. My wife says so!

[TheSunAndAntarctica]

I thought it was about prostitutes.. I mean, it could pretty obviously be interpreted as such.

[rakeuiff]

Thia was supposed to be about Cohen's brief belief in Scientology

[miami981]

First time I've read any background about Cohen!

I like the way you provide info on your videos.

Good Luck!