OK, the bridge, or someplace, later

[shewhomust]

Listening to the news the other morning, half asleep, and the tributes to Leonard Cohen, I heard the anouncer mention "his greatest hit" and automatically thought of Suzanne: I came up to university with a copy of 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' and found that half the college had their own copies - and quite a few people had 'Songs from a Room', too. Those are the songs that got under my skin, that throw up phrases when I'm thinking of something else.

Nothing that came later got as close to me - although when durham_rambler and I watched the Omnibus profile that appeared on the iPlayer, I was surprised how much of it I knew, and how well. But it was as if he'd vanished in the intervening years: he hadn't, of course, but I hadn't been paying attention. I know exactly when I did start to pay attention again: it was in 1994, when I saw Atom Egoyan's Exotica: Everybody Knows isn't quite the only thing I remember about the film (which I liked very much) but it stands out.

Looking for that date, I found this interesting article about Cohen's inadvertent brilliance in scoring film soundtracks - where I also learned some things I had not known about Leonard Cohen's greatest hit. Yes, of course it's Hallelujah. I knew that really (when I'm awake), though bear in mind that as I was saying, your greatest hit is likely not to be my favourite. Actually, I'd go further: some time ago, I wrote about 'those songs', big emotional anthems to which I also have an adverse reaction. I owe the word 'anthems' to commenters who took a more rounded, less irritable view of the phenomenon that I did. Now, I don't think that Hallelujah as we heard Leonard Cohen sing it in that Omnibus footage is one of those siongs - but by the time k.d. lang has finished with it, oh, yes, and brilliantly so, I wouldn't have it any other way. And apparently the transformation was effected by the unexpected alliance of John Cale and Shrek. I may need to go and lie down to think about that.

Meanwhile, courtesy of sovay, Hallelujah in Yiddish. Of course.

Comments

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing 'Suzanne' played on the radio, and being electrified: that would have been towards the end of the sixties.

I heard his first three albums played at friends' houses but did not acquire copies of my own until I went away to university. I still have them.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I don't remember where I first heard Suzanne. If it was on the radio, it would have been John Peel, probably on Radio London. It could have been the JUdy Collins version, of course...

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

It was definitely Leonard Cohen's own recording of it that I heard first. I've never forgotten those few minutes.