Did Leonard Cohen actually have a ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’?
As with all of Leonard Cohen’s songs, ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ is about no one thing in particular. Even in the songs that he wrote for specific people or about specific things, Cohen’s process meant that lyrics were reworked over and over, often taking years to craft into a finished product, by which point the core of the song became an entanglement of various inspirations and influences from within his creative mind. But as this blue raincoat stands out in the song as almost its only clear and specific image, it begs the question: was the coat real?
‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ was a mystery to Cohen himself. “I’ve always felt that there was something about the song that was unclear,” he admitted in 1994. Despite spending plenty of time crafting its form, writing it to sound like a letter with a final ending of “Sincerely, L Cohen,” the actual meaning or message of the song seemed as elusive to Cohen as it is to his listeners.
He explained to the BBC once that the context of the track had been lost to him over time. “The problem with that song is that I’ve forgotten the actual triangle,” he said. “Whether it was my own – of course, I always felt that there was an invisible male seducing the woman I was with, now whether this one was incarnate or merely imaginary, I don’t remember. I’ve always had the sense that either I’ve been that figure in relation to another couple or there’d been a figure like that in relation to my marriage.”
But part of that probably comes down to the time it takes him to finish songs, meaning that they’re started while he’s in one season of his life and often finished in a totally different one. In this instance, the track has references to Scientology as he asks, “Did you ever go clear?” tying it to his brief foray into the cult where he met the mother of his children. But in its connection to the raincoat, it ties him to a past life with a past lover.
With references to killers, locks of hair, someone called Jane, the German love song ‘Lili Marlene’, and more, the ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ lyrics are rich with metaphors and meanings written into odd and mysterious things. But at the centre of it was one garment, the “famous blue raincoat” that was “torn at the shoulder”. At that moment, the descriptions get a real-life grounding as it appears almost like a movie scene with a clear costume.
But did Leonard Cohen actually have a ‘famous blue raincoat’?
Well, yes, he did. In the liner notes of The Best of Leonard Cohen, the album that houses the track, Cohen explained the story behind the coat and how it inspired the track. “I had a good raincoat then, a Burberry I got in London in 1959,” he said. But beyond being just a nice coat from a good brand, the garment seemed to represent a change or a redirection.
He said, “Elizabeth thought I looked like a spider in it. That was probably why she wouldn’t go to Greece with me,” referencing how an ex-girlfriend always hated the coat. But Cohen went to Greece anyway, landing on Hydra where he didn’t get much wear of the coat in the sunny weather, but he did meet Marianne Ihlen, a long-term lover and crucial muse to his work. When the musician eventually left Hydra to go to New York and try to make music work, he wrote ‘So Long, Marianne’ as his farewell.
But towards the end of the 1960s and the start of the ‘70s, the two reconnected. Ihlen moved to the city with her son and they lived for a while as a happy family at her loft on Stanton Street.
This is where the coat’s story ends. “It was stolen from Marianne’s loft in New York City sometime during the early seventies,” he said, meaning that somewhere out there, someone unsuspectingly owns the famous blue raincoat.
By all accounts, it doesn’t sound like Cohen’s coat was ever ripped. In fact, he had the jacket altered to fit him better, stating, “It hung more heroically when I took out the lining, and achieved glory when the frayed sleeves were repaired with a little leather. Things were clear. I knew how to dress in those days.” But the coat seemed to represent something to him, something to do with losing lovers and ending chapters.
In the early 1970s, when he finished the song, he and Marianne split for the final time when he met his new partner, Suzanne Elrod. But that coat and that life he spent with Ihlen stuck with him. Days before her death, he wrote to her, “I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that. I don’t have to say any more.”
He promised he was “just a little behind you”, which it turns out he was, as only three months later, Cohen passed too.
