RESPECT YOUR iPOD | June 19th 2008

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When Leonard Cohen first came to New York to peddle his songs, he was asked, "Aren't you a little old for this game?" That was in 1966. He's back on tour after a 15-year gap. Tim de Lisle picks the poetic Cohen tunes you can't live without ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Summer 2008

When Leonard Cohen arrived in New York from Canada to tout his first songs round the agents, he was asked, "Aren't you a little old for this game?" That was in 1966. Within a year, he had made the unheard-of leap from poet and novelist to pop star. Ever since, he has been a cult figure, adored by about a million fans and misunderstood by nearly everyone else. He still gets mocked for his misery, when he hasn't been more than averagely gloomy for 20 years. His songs are warm and soulful, and what they lack in musicality, they make up for in literacy. Cohen is as good a lyricist as Dylan, and his gift hasn't faded with the decades. His voice has long since gone from singing to merely declaiming, so this summer's tour, his first in 15 years, could be just a series of poetry readings. But what poetry. Here are nine Cohen songs no self-respecting iPod should be without.

SUZANNE (Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967) Cohen announces himself with an educated folk song. Suzanne serves tea and oranges, and Leonard touches her perfect body with his mind--a phrase which almost makes ogling respectable. Jesus puts in an appearance too, the first of many.

BIRD ON THE WIRE (Songs from a Room, 1969)
A magical tune about the human condition: "Like a bird on the wire / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free". Covered by 100 acts, including Cohen's great contemporary Johnny Cash.

CHELSEA HOTEL NO 2 (New Skin for the Old Ceremony, 1974)
A stylish kiss-and-tell about a fling with Janis Joplin. "You told me again / You preferred handsome men / But for me you would make an exception." The gentleman in him regretted it, but the showman went on performing it.

HALLELUJAH (Various Positions, 1984)
After a slow start, this erudite threnody has become Cohen's best-loved song. Jeff Buckley made it his signature, Rufus Wainwright did it in "Shrek", and in March it even reached "American Idol"--and the iTunes top ten.

EVERYBODY KNOWS (I'm Your Man, 1988)
A tinkly synthesiser serves up jealousy with style: "Every-body knows you've been discreet / But there were so many people you just had to meet / Without your clothes".

TOWER OF SONG (I'm Your Man, 1988)
A defining moment as Cohen contemplates his own craft: "I said to Hank Williams, how lonely does it get? / Hank Williams hasn't answered yet / But I hear him coughing, all night long / Oh, a hundred floors above me / In the tower of song." In the 2005 film "I'm Your Man", he performed it with U2.

TAKE A WALTZ (I'm Your Man, 1988)
Another sparkling lyric, with added melodrama--because it's translated from Lorca. Cohen is such a fan of his, he named his daughter after him.

DEMOCRACY (The Future, 1992)
A prophecy of doom set to a cheery march. Cohen foretells the LA riots--and encapsulates America: "the cradle of the best and of the worst".

ALEXANDRA LEAVING (Ten New Songs, 2001)
After a long spell as a Buddhist monk, Cohen returned with renewed elegance. This stately ballad, adapted from the poet Cavafy, was one of John Cale's "Desert Island Discs".

Leonard Cohen tours Europe from June 13th to August 3rd.

(Tim de Lisle is Editor of Intelligent Life)

Photos by Clive Barda, Eyevine