That's the headline from January 1968 in The New York Times for a review of "Songs of Leonard Cohen," Leonard Cohen's first album. The headline is hilariously dismissive.
The reviewer was Donal Henahan (1921-2012), whose obituary (in the NYT) says he was a WWII fighter pilot, and he began his NYT reviewing in September 14, 1967 with this:
“The American subculture of buttons and beards, poster art and pot, sandals and oddly shaped spectacles met the rather more ancient culture of India last evening at Philharmonic Hall. The occasion was the first of six concerts there this season by Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso, whose instrument traces back about 700 years and whose chosen art form, the raga, is said to be 2,000 years old.”
Oddly shaped spectacles.... Here's the whole Ravi Shankar piece as it appeared on page 53 of the NYT that day. There's not much more to the article, but, my God, what you see on that page!
Look at the ads for live shows in New York City on that one day! Shall we see Nina Simone at the Village Gate or Thelonious Monk at the Village Vanguard? Or Tim Buckley at the Cafe Au Go Go? We could see Fugs. Or Eddie Fisher and Buddy Hackett in "a hilarious evening of comedy and songs." We could see Marlene Dietrich with an orchestra conducted by Burt Bacharach. Or — the height of absurdity — Up With People at Carnegie Hall. We could see Lauren Bacall in "Cactus Flower" or Lou Jacobi in Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the Water." Angela Lansbury was doing "Mame" at the time (I caught that one). There were 2 Harold Pinter plays. And "Cabaret," "Fiddler on the Roof," and "The Man of La Mancha."
What insane riches! So maybe you wouldn't care about the alienated young man with some sad music. Subheadline: "Leonard Cohen Writes and Records Own Songs Poet Is as Unhappy as Bob Dylan, but Far Less Angry."
Leonard Cohen is fairly young — 33 years old — Canadian, Jewish, and very, very sad. On the ailenation scale, he rates somewhere between Schopenhauer and Bob Dylan, two other prominent poets of pessimism.Pessimism!
Weltschmerz and soft rock are what Mr. Cohen is selling.... His songs are crooned monotonously, mostly in minor keys, and their lyrics employ all seven types of ambiguity.... "Suzanne" has its moments of fairly digestible surrealism.... Mr. Cohen is smooth, of voice and bland of meaning.... [T]he Canadian troubadour sounds like a sad man cashing in on self-pity and adolescent loneliness. "Oh take me to the slaughterhouse/I will wait their with the lamb," drones Mr. Cohen. After a while it seems like a tempting invitation.Meanwhile, I was listening to the "Songs of Leonard Cohen" this morning — and it feels completely fresh and beautiful.
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61 comments:
but, my God, what you see on that page!
Do you see a Chinaman who eats with sticks?
"On the alienation scale, he rates somewhere between Schopenhauer and Bob Dylan . . . Mr. Cohen is smooth, of voice and bland of meaning.... [T]he Canadian troubadour sounds like a sad man cashing in on self-pity and adolescent loneliness."
Worked wonders with chicks, I gather.
That’s always been my opinion of Cohen.
People listen to it and seem to like it a lot, which is a mystery to me.
We have TikTok and WAP now. So there is that. Which is nice.
You should read sometime what the cool kids said about John Denver.
I just got reacquainted with Cohen recently thanks to an Ace of Spades link to “Everybody Knows.” What a great, disturbing song that is. Reviewers like the asshole quoted here are the world’s biggest pricks. They used to be even bigger pricks, especially NYT reviewers. Creating art is hard, critiqueing it assholian.
I get him mixed up with Jacques Brel
I can see how believing Christians might not like Leonard Cohen’s use of Christian imagery, but he has written some great songs.
Are the misspellings in the original?
One of the better pairings of music to movie was songs from this album with McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
I was never much of a Cohen fan until I saw him concert (basically the Live in London show). It was an incredible show. The level of musicality was stunning.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller turned me on to Cohen too.
Teachers and critics
All dance The Poot
Cohens music really made mcabe & ms Miller.
I've been a cohen fan since the 70s
But it IS excessively sad music
John Henry
I had never heard of Leonard Cohen until he released his last - and I do mean last - album; which I liked.
What does that make me?
He was never played on the radio in Omaha.
Is Henahan's review what drove Cohen into the monastery?
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The review sounds like a perfect illustration of the 60's generation gap, but Henahan was only 13 years older than Cohen, who was already almost 33.
Whatever happened to that generation gap? Did the older generation pass away without reconciling with the young?
Now it's all about Boomers and Xers versus Millennials and Zeds.
Don’t remember slow dancing in the high school gym to any of those songs.
This is as good a place as any to plug Don Henley's cover of Cohen's Everybody Knows.
"He was never played on the radio in Omaha.”
I don’t know that I have heard a Cohen song on the radio ever. Possibly that Hallelujah song from Shrek, I guess.
David Begley said...
I had never heard of Leonard Cohen until he released his last - and I do mean last - album; which I liked.
He was so so as a younger artist, known more for somewhat stiff (IMO) poetry than singing. As he aged, his voice more deeply reflected the emotions of his words.
Listen to his live concert work when he toured in his 70's.
You should read sometime what the cool kids said about John Denver.
-----------------------
Not sure what the cool kids said, but Charlie Rich definitely had an opinion about his music back in 1975.
https://youtu.be/Qf3t3unp-Gg
---Shall we see Nina Simone at the Village Gate [AA]
Soon to be leaving the US as she continued to slip deeper into delusion and misery.
So talented, but politics and hate had begun poisoning her music before 1968. Getting used by those with a political agenda and falling for it, Nina Simone was working against her strengths as a singer and pianist. A little bit the way Dylan had to stop and disappear for a year or two himself around the same time.
It's hard to separate her own mental issues from the politicization of those times, but I have always felt that hers was a potentially great career ruined by cheap headlines and the wrong people around her. A far greater talent than Leonard Cohen, IMO. Listen to Nina at Newport, one of the most beautiful records of that decade. It's hard to believe that all that richness of sound, voice and material was going to vanish so quickly.
Would a happy, well-adjusted Lenny have written any music or lyrics worth hearing?
Maybe not, moroseness was his nature - it was even etched in his face - and he had to go with it.
I sense a connection in the Beautiful Losers idea with the Sixties students' fixation on Bogart and Casablanca and with the revolution that never happened.
Anyway, he did have Caroline Giuliani's number before she was even born:
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Clean Hen Odor
Cleaned Honor
Enhance Drool
Neon Card Hole
I learned about Leonard Cohen from a Concrete Blond cover in a silly, but fun Christian Slater movie which also introduced me to Samantha Mathis' tits. All very exciting in the pre-internet era.
Blogger tcrosse said...
but, my God, what you see on that page!
Do you see a Chinaman who eats with sticks?
We ordered Chinese takeout from the local Chinese restaurant last night, and they sent along chopsticks. We didn't use them for fear of cultural appropriation.
"I don't like the Cure, but I like Leonard Cohen" counted as game with goth chicks in 1990.
Heh, Lurker21, that tune was it, and the Concrete Blonde version became the anthem of a major AIDS campaign.
Here's the Leonard Cohen right alongside the Concrete Blonde version from the Christian Slater movie. I loved the Concrete Blonde cover, which I heard first, and then I really loved the tune when I heard Cohen sing it--pained, but vicious and sardonic.
My lovely wife listens to Cohen's greatest hits when she works out.
There's also from creepy Canadian stripper flick Exotica. I remember trying to figure out Atom Egoyan movies as a late teen, and enjoying the struggle more with this one than the one he made about the insurance adjuster.
It appears I very much associate Leonard Cohen, more than any artist I can think of, with the girls I liked when I was younger, both some individually and a type. That's not a bad association at all.
I presume Shankar was working on the "Charly" soundtrack at about this time.
The very first album I purchased as a teenager was Leonard Cohen (I think Days of Future Passed was the second) and I still listen to him regularly over 4 decades later. Joni Mitchell's Conversation was playing yesterday while I was wearing headphones and I was kind of blown away and started reading more about her early days. I had not realized about her connections with Cohen (including dating him) and per playing so much with Dylan. She dated a lot of famous guys.
I am 74 and do not know, nor care, who Cohen was.
Couldn't get a great view of the page in the NY Times, but from what I could see...yes, an embarrassment of riches. Actually, the sort of riches that gave New York it's reputation as the greatest city in the world (at least...one of them). But...that was then. Now? Not even close.
Now we have actors from an overhyped play standing on stage lecturing new Vice Presidents on how not to be a Nazi, while the New York audience around him applauds their approvals of the lecture and scowls at the Vice President, a man known for his calm patience with all people.
New York today is not the New York visited by the young Leonard Cohen. (who, by the way, sounds better to me today than he did back then.) Maybe his words mean more to me today than they did back then.
"My lovely wife listens to Cohen's greatest hits when she works out."
Works out what? The meaning of life?
I had not realized Rainy Night House - maybe my favorite JM song - was written about Cohen. It must have been kind of difficult to have been a really talented male songwriter and singer and dating Joni Mitchell in the late 1960s.
The guy who titled his poetry collection Flowers for Hitler would have a lot of trouble nowadays.
Cohen recognized that he was a bitter, unhappy guy:
It's a pity if someone... has to console himself for the wreck of his days with the notion that somehow his voice, his work embodies the deepest, most obscure, freshest, rawest oyster of reality in the unfathomable refrigerator of the heart's ocean, but I am such a one, and there you have it. ... It is really amazing how famous I am to those few who truly comprehend what I'm about. I am the Voice of Suffering and I cannot be consoled.
...
What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
...
I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.
Change 'Leonard Cohen' to 'Billie Eilish' and you've got an updated review...
LOL Charlie Rich. All John Denver ever wanted to do was make the people who listened to his music happy. He is kind of the antithesis of Leonard Cohen.
I like to read old magazines and see the way that people are blind to what we consider obvious from our spot in the future. They think that rock and roll is just a fad, or that rock and roll will never die, or that disco sucks. They could go to see Monk at the Vanguard, but they won't. They could buy comic books and seal them in plastic bags as an investment vehicle, but they won't. They do not know what will hit them. They do not know what is already present in their midst. They do not know what will die out and what will replace that which will disappear.
Just like us, in other words.
"Not sure what the cool kids said, but Charlie Rich definitely had an opinion about his music back in 1975."
Say what you will about Denver, but the guy knew how to write and had an amazing voice.
Here's Denver and Cass singing live...starts around 2:30.
The harmonies are ridiculous. And Denver is picking a 12-string to boot.
He couldn't fly a plane worth a damn, but the man had talent.
And anybody dressed like Charlie Rich shouldn't throw stones : )
Don’tcha be poor-mouthing’ Mohair Sam now...
"Here's Denver and Cass singing live...starts around 2:30.”
Far out!
I saw Angela Lansbury in “Mame” in 1968. Good show, good performance. Leonard Cohen wasn’t in it.
I like that kind of dismissive criticism. what a change from the critical pap you started to get in the 1970's where everything was "Great, great, great". Unless of course, its transgressed against some liberal political taboo.
BTw, was there an ad for:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?
Cohen is insanely popular on Youtube. I see one song with 180 million views and another with 80 million. But not kind of music. Listened to both of them, and decided I'd rather slit my wrists than continue.
Dance me to the end of love.
We could see Lauren Bacall in "Cactus Flower"
I saw it as a movie with Goldie Hawn.
I saw it as a movie with Goldie Hawn.
Not to mention Ingrid Bergman.
I like Leonard Cohen, but I can't think of any upbeat song he ever wrote or performed. "Tonight will be fine-- for a while"--that's about as cheery as he ever got. I don't think he had the range to put across an upbeat song. His version of Que Sera Sera would not be as reassuring as that of Doris Day. And "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is predictive of a difficult death in a nursing home if sung by Leonard Cohen.....That said, within his range he's tops. I think Dylan had more musical gifts, but when it came to morose lyrics Cohen was the more gifted poet. If you like to sit alone and contemplate your sad fate on this hostile planet, he's second only to Frank Sinatra.
The covers to Cohen's songs are better.
Find them.
Whatever one might think of the relative merits of Leonard Cohen versus John Denver, I think we can all agree that no one anywhere has ever grown nostalgic for the Ravi Shankar songs of his youth.
New York used to be a wonderful town, but now it's Closing Time.
Narr
Sad!
Althouse
Thanks for the link! The NYT was a great paper then for a great city. Wonderful to scroll through that edition, really great.
I am headed to NY again on Monday. I fly ro Newarlpk to avoid the LaGuardia COVID nonsense and will Uber to ny hotel where there will be no food service, no coffee maker in the room (to be safe you know) and will have to locate a nearby Starbucks for my morning fix. Breakfast out of the question and finding a lunch or dinner venue where I won’t be stuck outdoors will be an issue.
I hate to go to the city I love and know well. A disaster.
Up With People - Glenn Close started her career with them, which is why she did not enter William & Mary until she was 21. She was likely in the ensemble at the time of the review. She was Glennie Wade then. Already very obviously talented and versatile.
Indoor dining is sorta allowed now. It's still a shitshow. Everything can be ordered for delivery.
But worth a try, lotta places seating.
As for myself I always thought the stand-alone vid cover Concrete Blond did of Cohen's "Everybody Knows" was even better than Cohen's original--never did see the Christian Slater movie featuring Concrete Blonde's cover--was it audio only, or did it include the Concrete Blonde vid one sees on Tube of You?
The Concrete Blonde audio plays during the closing credits and was on the soundtrack and radio and MTV, which still played videos then, when the film came out. The Christian Slater character is a pirate DJ who loves the Leonard Cohen original and plays it during the film.
Dance me to the end of love. Romantic optimism.
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