David Gilmour names the most forgotten aspect of Leonard Cohen
David Gilmour dared to do something few would. He dared to suggest that in fact, Leonard Cohen is underrated.
It’s almost laughable to suggest that Cohen undeniably lives in the God tier. Not only is he one of the most broadly beloved figures of the 1960s folk scene, but his legacy spans far beyond that.
A track like ‘Hallelujah’ makes him immortal as people still, daily, cover it at karaoke and open mic nights worldwide. His poems and novels are revered in a whole other vein as he’s respected just as much as a writer as he is a musician.
But mostly, perhaps the ultimate proof of Cohen’s looming presence and unshakable position as one of the greats is the fact that so many other musical leaders bow to him. “For many of us, Leonard Cohen was the greatest songwriter of them all. Utterly unique and impossible to imitate, no matter how hard we tried,” Nick Cave once said, giving full credit to Cohen for sparking his entire career. Bob Dylan once called Cohen a “genius”, covering ‘Hallelujah’ and seeing it as one of the finest compositions ever made.
The praise continues. Joni Mitchell once said she was only ever a groupie for two artists, the only two who ever deserved that level of love; “Picasso and Leonard”. It’s clear that when it comes to an artist who is celebrated on the highest level, Cohen’s legacy is polished and praised constantly.
However, for David Gilmour, there’s an element of his career that still hasn’t had enough attention to it. While people speak constantly about his songwriting, his poetry, his melodies, he wants more celebration for a different aspect.
“One thing I did learn is how bloody good he is as a guitar player,” Gilmour said, was the main thing he came away with after studying Cohen’s songs.
“You tend to think of singer-songwriters as people who are just using the guitar accompaniment to carry the words that they’re doing, but Leonard was an absolutely brilliantly accomplished guitar player in finger-picking style things that I just cannot do,” he explained. To him, that’s something people often forget about Cohen, rarely regarding his guitar skills despite them being the very vehicle that made his songs so impactful.
It’s true. Think about a track like ‘Suzanne’ and it’s his gentle, folkish finger picking that makes it so romantic and luscious, providing the poetic lyrics with an equally poetic sound. For all of his earlier works, they’re coloured by a distinct simplicity, as it was rarely much more than just Cohen and an acoustic guitar. That’s what first caught the world’s attention, and really, that’s what people missed when he started to become a bit too overproduced during a period of feeling musically lost.
He was a unique player, much like Mitchell and Dylan themselves, which is partly why they love him so much. He’d figured out his own style, and just like his lyricism, it was bathed in his voice and led by his own singular mind and talent. So perhaps Gilmour is right, perhaps Cohen is still underrated.
