Columbia Records put out in 1971. And the most compelling moments -- among an
embarrassment of riches -- came on lyrics like "Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc/As she came riding through the dark/No Moon to keep her armor bright/No man to get her
through this night...."; indeed, hearing Cohen's lyrics 25 years on, one could almost find a burlesque of Cohen's music in the songs of Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe Buffay on Friends -- who,
even money bet probably grew up on Songs of Love and Hate in her fictional bio -- and lyrics
like "They found their bodies the third day...."
Teenagers of the late '60s (or any era that followed) listening devotedly to Leonard Cohen
might have worried their parents, but also could well have been the smartest or most
sensitive kids in their class and the most well-balanced emotionally -- if they weren't
depressed -- but also effectively well on their way out of being teenagers, and probably too
advanced for their peers and maybe most of their teachers (except maybe the ones listening
to Cohen). Songs of Love and Hate, coupled with the earlier hit versions of "Suzanne," etc., earned Cohen a large international cult following. He also found himself in demand in the
world of commercial filmmaking, as director Robert Altman used his music in his 1971
feature film McCabe and Mrs. Miller, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, a revisionist
period film set at the turn of the 19th century that was savaged by the critics (and, by some
accounts, sabotaged by its own studio) but went on to become one of the director's best-
366
loved movies. The following year, he also published a new poetry collection, The Energy of
Slaves.
As was his won't, Cohen spent years between albums, and in 1973 he seemed to take stock of
himself as a performer by issuing Leonard Cohen: Live Songs. Not a conventional live
album, it was a compendium of performances from various venues across several years and
focused on highlights of his output from 1969 onward. It showcased his writing as much as
his performing, but also gave a good account of his appeal to his most serious fans -- those
still uncertain of where they stood in relation to his music who could get past the epic-length
"Please Don't Pass Me By" knew for certain they were ready to "join" the inner circle of his legion of devotees after that, while others who only appreciated "Bird on the Wire" or "The Story of Isaac" could stay comfortably on an outer ring.
Meanwhile, in 1973, his music became the basis for a theatrical production called Sisters of
Mercy, conceived by Gene Lesser and loosely based on Cohen's life, or at least a fantasy
version of his life. A three-year lag ensued between Songs of Love and Hate and Cohen's
next album, and most critics and fans just assumed he'd hit a dry spell with the live album
covering the gap. He was busy concertizing, however, in the United States and Europe
during 1971 and 1972, and extending his appearances into Israel during the 1973 Yom
Kippur War. It was during this period that he also began working with pianist and arranger
John Lissauer, whom he engaged as producer of his next album, New Skin for the Old
Ceremony (1974). That album seemed to justify his fans' continued faith in his work,
presenting Cohen in a more lavish musical environment. He proved capable of holding his
own in a pop environment, even if the songs were mostly still depressing and bleak.
The following year, Columbia Records released The Best of Leonard Cohen, featuring a
dozen of his best-known songs -- principally hits in the hands of other performers -- from his previous four LPs (though it left out "Dress Rehearsal Rag"). It was also during the mid-'70s that Cohen first crossed paths professionally with Jennifer Warnes, appearing on the same
bill with the singer at numerous shows, which would lead to a series of key collaborations in
the ensuing decade. By this time, he was a somewhat less mysterious persona, having toured
extensively and gotten considerable exposure -- among many other attributes, Cohen became
known for his uncanny attractiveness to women, which seemed to go hand in glove with the
romantic subjects of most of his songs.
In 1977, Cohen reappeared with the ironically titled Death of a Ladies' Man, the most
controversial album of his career, produced by Phil Spector. The notion of pairing Spector --
known variously as a Svengali-like presence to his female singers and artists and the most
unrepentant (and often justified) over-producer in the field of pop music -- with Cohen must
have seemed like a good one to someone at some point, but apparently Cohen himself had
misgivings about many of the resulting tracks that Spector never addressed, having mixed
the record completely on his own. The resulting LP suffered from the worst attributes of
Cohen's and Spector's work, overly dense and self-consciously imposing in its sound, and
virtually bathing the listener in Cohen's depressive persona, but showing his limited vocal
abilities to disadvantage, owing to Spector's use of "scratch" (i.e., guide) vocals and his unwillingness to permit the artist to redo some of his weaker moments on those takes. For
the first (and only) time in Cohen's career, his near-monotone delivery of this period wasn't a 367
positive attribute. Cohen's unhappiness with the album was widely known among fans, who
mostly bought it with that caveat in mind, so it didn't harm his reputation -- a year after its release, Cohen also published a new literary collection using the title Death of a Ladies' Man.
Cohen's next album, Recent Songs (1979), returned him to the spare settings of his early-'70s
work and showed his singing to some of its best advantage. Working with veteran producer
Henry Lewy (best known for his work with Joni Mitchell), the album showed Cohen's
singing as attractive and expressive in its quiet way, and songs such as "The Guests" seeming downright pretty -- he still wrote about life and love, and especially relationships, in stark terms, but he almost seemed to be moving into a pop mode on
