It is decades ago that I heard Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne for the first time on radio. I was sick with a cold, lying on my couch, one speaker to my left and one to the right. Stereo radio hadn’t been around so very long. While listening, I also recorded this radio program with the family’s new stereo cassette recorder. We were definitely early out with this technology. To me the arrival of the cassette tape was a revolution bigger than the MP3 breakthrough of the 1990’s. Reel to reel tape recorders had been pricy and the handling cumbersome. The cassette tape was the longed-for medium to get around buying expensive LP records! Now you could record your friends' LP-records and hunt the airwaves for desired music!
I recall listening to about half a minute of Suzanne, wondering what kind of a strange sing-song this was. It seemed all too simple and monotonous. But suddenly, just as it happened to the man in the song, something tuned me to the right “wavelength” and I got fascinated by both music and lyrics! A love story of sorts, suddenly changing into a religious theme, though in a most unconventional manner. Body touching mind, mind touching body, that struck a chord in me! Directly after the program I listened to Suzanne and some other Cohen songs for the rest of the evening from the freshly recorded cassette.
Cassette tape or not, in the following weeks I tried to buy the LP-record containing Suzanne, at first without success. I searched through the “Folk” sections in several record stores. I never doubted that "Folk" was the right classification. Finally I asked an attendant why I couldn’t find this new artist - Leonard Cohen - amongst Dylan, Donovan and Joan Baez. I earned an astonished and slightly irritated look and the terse advice: Look in the “Underground” section! Wow, who would have thought that Cohen was right in there with Frank Zappa, the Doors, Velvet Underground, Bonzo Dog Band and the likes! For some reason that’s how it was inGermany
Some years later I read Cohen’s account on what lay behind “Suzanne”: His platonic relationship with Suzanne Verdal, her place close to the St Lawrence river, thechurch of Notre Dame de Bonsecours close to the Montreal harbor, Hamburg
I recall listening to about half a minute of Suzanne, wondering what kind of a strange sing-song this was. It seemed all too simple and monotonous. But suddenly, just as it happened to the man in the song, something tuned me to the right “wavelength” and I got fascinated by both music and lyrics! A love story of sorts, suddenly changing into a religious theme, though in a most unconventional manner. Body touching mind, mind touching body, that struck a chord in me! Directly after the program I listened to Suzanne and some other Cohen songs for the rest of the evening from the freshly recorded cassette.
Cassette tape or not, in the following weeks I tried to buy the LP-record containing Suzanne, at first without success. I searched through the “Folk” sections in several record stores. I never doubted that "Folk" was the right classification. Finally I asked an attendant why I couldn’t find this new artist - Leonard Cohen - amongst Dylan, Donovan and Joan Baez. I earned an astonished and slightly irritated look and the terse advice: Look in the “Underground” section! Wow, who would have thought that Cohen was right in there with Frank Zappa, the Doors, Velvet Underground, Bonzo Dog Band and the likes! For some reason that’s how it was in
Some years later I read Cohen’s account on what lay behind “Suzanne”: His platonic relationship with Suzanne Verdal, her place close to the St Lawrence river, the
I always felt that “Suzanne” calls for being remixed with sounds of a river, harbor, city and possibly a church. I experimented with that years ago. But only recently I finalized this remix. The image-show going with the track was an afterthought, personally I just as soon just listen to my Harbor version".
The pictures of the woman in the show – even the drawing - came up by googling after Suzanne Verdal, so I assume that they depict Cohen's muse from Montreal...
It is not the first time I've worked with Cohen-material. Recently I assembled some of that material to a CD, containing some lesser known songs, alternative studio takes or different versions of known songs, samples of Cohen's poetry and excerpts from radio and TV interviews. Some of the tracks I enhanced, remixed or intermixed. All for private purposes. The material is from Cohen's younger years. True, the old guy is a phenomenon, but I remain a devotee of the more light-hearted and boyish voice.
As a former resident of Canada I was also intersted in Cohen's views on Canada, on Quebec and on the Montreal-scene of the time, that is reflected in the "End Of Youth" CD as well. Most of my years in Canada I spent in Vancouver, but Montreal was the place I got to see first, after a ten-day voyage in (almost) classic immigrant fashion...
Listen to another of Cohen's songs from the early years that only recently appeared on one of his records as a bonus track:
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