Singer Poets – Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen – that is the trinity. Cohen is my favourite of the three. Cohen was first a poet and then a singer – he published poetry through the ’50s and ’60s, becoming of Canada’s foremost poets. In fact almost all his songs started out as poems, which were later set to music and sung by him in that amazing deep, bass voice. The English language equivalent of a “nazam” I suppose – Cohen’s songs have the same depth and beauty as my favourite Ghalib ghazals.

I first heard “Suzanne” in ’80 on a cassette tape that my friend Sujata brought with her from Canada when her family came to India. Suju and I very quickly became best friends and she introduced me to some of the music that has become my lifelong favourites. Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’ is one of those  songs. It absolutely blew me away the first time I heard it – that voice, the mystical lyrics and the deep imagery. It’s an amazing song written by a man about a woman who he is madly in love with, who’s conversation is an aphrodisiac and who’s eccentric ways make her even more endearing. It played on the radio from time to time and sadly wasn’t much requested, but it has become legend over the years. I’ve heard the most unlikely of my friends, tell me, completely out of the blue, they are Cohen fans and love this song. He really touched our hearts with his mind!

It was only in the late 60s, after almost a decade of being a poet that Cohen decided to become a singer. The first song on his first ever album in 1967 was ‘Suzanne’ – imagine starting your recording career with that song! By the way, there really was a ‘Suzanne’ – her name was Suzanne McCallister – and she lived in Montreal. Cohen was a friend of Suzanne and her husband in the late 50s. After breaking up with her husband, she lived in a small place on the banks of the St. Lawrence River and Cohen would come and hang out with her all the time. She would serve him tea with oranges and they would talk. Just talk and be with each other. Cohen wrote a poem about their wonderful time together. It became the first song he ever sang publicly and his first release. Unfortunately, he was tricked into giving up the rights to the song, which, Cohen the poet, very philosophically accepted as fate.

Of course, Hallelujah from 1984 is possibly his most famous song. Cohen released after almost a decade in the shadows but with little success. It took a number of years for the song to become a cult favourite. The poetry is beautiful, mystical and humorous. But it’s the melody that seems to come together magically with the lyrics, making the song really about as perfect as you can make a song. The song has been covered over 300 times in many languages, which is ironic considering his label didn’t even want to release it when he first brought it to them! The original poem has over 80 verses (?) but the version that everyone now sings is shorter one by John Cale. It is also the version used in ‘Shrek’ in 2001, bringing Cohen to a whole new generation.

Listen with reverence my friends !