How Leonard Cohen changed Joni Mitchell’s songwriting: “He showed me how to plumb the depths”
It’s not a stretch to say that Leonard Cohen is one of the most talented and influential lyricists of all time. Initially finding his calling in poetry and novels, Cohen only expanded his prowess with words into music in the late 1960s. Layering his philosophical and emotive poetry over soft folk, Cohen secured a place as one of the most well-loved and remembered singer-songwriters of the era.
Cohen’s words often delved deep into huge themes such as love, religion, and loss. Sometimes they were dark, sometimes they were devoted, but they were always vulnerable and always masterfully poetic. His words were so influential that they have been endlessly covered and interpreted by artists since. Perhaps most notably, Jeff Buckley breathed new life into ‘Hallelujah’ with his take on the song, but Cohen has also been covered by the likes of Nina Simone, Lana Del Rey, and Nick Cave.
As well as his direct lyrical influence through covers, Cohen has had a profound influence on folk songwriting as a whole. His aptitude for deeply personal but poetic writing bled into the folk singers that surrounded him, as well as those who came after him. Perhaps most notably, Cohen was instrumental in the equally vulnerable and beautiful lyrics crafted by Joni Mitchell.
Like Cohen, Mitchell sang of love and loss over folk soundscapes, gaining a reputation as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. They were two sides of the same coin, Canadian singer-songwriters existing in the poetic folk genre, both finding their breakthrough in the late 1960s. Expectedly, then, after they met at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967, they embarked upon a brief relationship which would spawn some beautiful breakup songs.
Though their romantic affair was brief, the impact they had on one another was long-lasting. Almost a decade after they first met, Mitchell recalled the impact of Cohen on her songwriting in The Education of Joni Mitchell by Stewart Brand via the Joni Mitchell website. She explained: “In my early 20s, I met two men who were best friends from childhood – one a sculptor – one a poet.” The latter, of course, was Cohen.
After she explains the impact of sculptor Mort Rosenthal on her drawing, Mitchell shared how Cohen changed the way she wrote songs: “The poet Leonard Cohen was a mirror to my work and with no verbal instructions he showed me how to plumb the depths of my own experience.” Together, the two of them had a “catalytic” impact on Mitchell, which she suggests opened her gifts in the two areas. This influence and admiration ran both ways, as Cohen also praised Mitchell’s songwriting.
In Cohen’s image, Mitchell learned to infuse her music with her own experiences and feelings. It is that unrelenting vulnerability, that willingness to expose the depths of their souls, that has endeared the two folk legends to generations of music fans since.
