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Leonard Cohen Biography

in full Leonard Norman Cohen

(1934 - )

Related Works

Poetry
1956 Let Us Compare Mythologies
1961 The Spice-Box of Earth

1964 Flowers for Hitler
1968 Selected Poems
1972 The Energy of Slaves
1978 Death of a Lady's Man
1984 Book of Mercy
Novels
1963 The Favourite Game
1968 Beautiful Losers
Albums
1967 Songs of Leonard Cohen
1969 Songs From a Room
1971 Songs of Love and Hate
1973 Live Songs
1974 New Skin for the Old Ceremony
1975 The Best of Leonard Cohen
1977 Death of a Lady's Man
1979 Recent Songs
1985 Various Positions
1988 I'm Your Man
1992 The Future
1994 Cohen Live
2001 Ten New Songs (with Sharon Robinson)
2004 Dear Heather
Compilations
1975 Greatest Hits
1976 The Best of Leonard Cohen
1995 Tower of Song: The Songs of Leonard Cohen

» More

Related Sites

The Official Leonard Cohen Web site

(born Sept. 21, 1934, Montreal, Que., Can.) Canadian singer-songwriter whose spare songs carried an existential bite and established him as one of the most distinctive voices of 1970s pop music.

Already established as a poet and novelist (his first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956), Cohen became interested in the Greenwich Village folk scene while living in New York City during the mid-1960s, and he began setting his poems to music. In 1967 Judy Collins recorded two of his songs, “Suzanne” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag,” and that same year Cohen began performing in public, including an appearance at the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival. By the end of the year, he had recorded The Songs of Leonard Cohen, which included the melancholy “Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye.” That album was followed by Songs from a Room (1969), featuring the now often-covered “Bird on a Wire,” and Songs of Love and Hate (1971), containing “Famous Blue Raincoat,” a ballad in the form of a letter from a cuckold to his wife's lover.Though some did not care for Cohen's baritone voice and deadpan delivery, he mostly enjoyed critical and commercial success. Leonard Cohen: Live Songs (1973) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974), which included “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” a frank recollection of a brief sexual encounter with Janis Joplin, further deepened Cohen's standing as a songwriter of exceptional emotional power. His career then took a decided turn for the worse with the disappointing Death of a Ladies' Man (1977), a collaboration with legendary producer Phil Spector, whose grandiose style was ill-suited to Cohen's understated songs. For most of the 1980s Cohen was out of favour, but his 1988 album, I'm Your Man, included the club hits “First We Take Manhattan” and “Everybody Knows” and introduced his songwriting to a new generation. After releasing The Future (1992), he retired to a Buddhist monastery outside Los Angeles. He emerged in 1999 and returned to the studio, producing Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004). The critically acclaimed documentary Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005) blended interview and archival footage with performances of Cohen's songs by a variety of musicians. In 2008 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.