Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Going Deep With Leonard Cohen

Even those of you casual radio listeners who know Leonard Cohen probably have only heard his song Suzanne. Here are a few more selections from the "musical poet."

Leonard Cohen has long been considered more of a poet than a singer. His lyrics are haunting but oblique and his use of words is exquisite. However, to ignore his music and singing is to do him an injustice. He has an incredibly deep voice and you almost get a catch in your throat listening to him. His melodies are beautiful though most of his songs are, admittedly, like dirges. He sings these slow, deep, drawling songs that just suck you in with their weight.

Here are a few songs that are more upbeat than the typical Leonard Cohen. Everybody Knows has a nice, almost rollicking feel to it (yes, for Leonard Cohen, this is "rollicking"). The second selection, I'm Your Man is one of his bigger hits and also has a slight dance-y lilt to it. I was going to add a third selection, but decided that you should just buy some Leonard Cohen to get a good sense of his music.

These songs were taken from an excellent compilation of Leonard Cohen songs called The Essential Leonard Cohen. This 2-CD set is available relatively inexpensively on Amazon here. If you like this (and most of you will), you can find the rest of his discography on Amazon here.

You can read his wikipedia entry about his career as a singer, songwriter, poet, and novelist here.

1. Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows (5.14 MB; 128kbps MP3)
2. Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man (4.05 MB; 128kbps MP3)