Songs of Leonard Cohen

1967  ·  Album

A quiet man at the start of everything, singing as if the room were already listening.

Leonard Cohen’s 1967 debut arrives without hurry and without apology, a spare and intimate set of songs that sound as if they were written at a small table after midnight and recorded before anyone could talk him out of them. At the centre of the record are “Suzanne” and “So Long, Marianne”, and around them a voice that treats every line as if it mattered and nothing as if it needed decoration. The arrangements stay out of the way. The writing does the work. Nothing here is padded, and nothing is rushed; each song ends when it has said what it came to say.

Play it whole, front to back, at dusk or later, with the volume low enough that you lean in. It is a debut that still feels like a confidence rather than a performance, and it has the rare quality of making a room quieter without emptying it. The guitar is plain, the voice is close, and the songs ask for attention rather than spectacle. Put it on when the light is going. Stay for the whole of it, from the first quiet entrance to the last line, and let the evening settle around the record instead of the other way around.

VERDICT  ·  A spare, intimate debut; play it at dusk, low, and let “Suzanne” and “So Long, Marianne” do their quiet work.

POUR  ·  A glass of rich red; brandy for later.

Pairs with: The Debut at Dusk