Leonard Cohen’s strange tour of “mental asylums”
The beauty of Leonard Cohen’s music lies in the fact that before he became a singer, he was a writer. He didn’t release his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, until 1967; by that point, he had already written several poetry collections and novels. Cohen had a way with his pen, articulating his thoughts and emotions fluidly, often poking fun at himself or imbuing his words with a sense of eroticism.
He released his second album, Songs for a Room, in 1969, which hit number two in the United Kingdom. It also reached number 12 in the Dutch Charts, suggesting that Cohen had appeal in Europe. Thus, it was time for him to tour the continent, and he set off across the pond in 1970.
In the grand scheme of Cohen’s career, it was still very early. He hadn’t released some of his greatest works just yet, like New Skin for the Old Ceremony or Songs of Love and Hate, and he wasn’t as well known as he was back home. Subsequently, when he appeared in places like Hamburg, Paris and London, Cohen wasn’t greeted with adoration. During a French festival appearance, Cohen was accused of being a fascist sympathiser by angry, rebellious youths, just one of many incidents that led Cohen to consider his European tour far from perfect.
In the book A Broken Hallelujah: Rock n Roll, Redemption and the Life of Leonard Cohen by Liel Leibovitz, the author explains how Cohen had a revolutionary new idea to save his tour from complete disaster. “I want to play mental asylums,” Cohen had told a producer named Bob Johnston. For the singer, an audience of people who knew what it was like to truly struggle with their mental health, who perhaps more likely knew what it was like to feel lost, alone and confused, was ideal.
“When someone consents to go into a mental hospital or is committed he has already acknowledged a tremendous defeat,” he explained. “To put it another way, he has already made a choice. And it was my feeling that the elements to this choice, and the elements of this choice, and the elements of this defeat, corresponded with certain elements that produced my songs, and that there would be an empathy between the people who had this experience and the experience as documented in my songs”.
On his tour, Cohen played at various psychiatric hospitals, such as Henderson Hospital, although alternative sources suggest that a member of the hospital actually requested Cohen come and play there. Henderson’s had a writer’s group, and the members thought it would be great if Cohen could be featured on the front cover of their newsletter.
The musician agreed and played the show, which went down a treat. In an old article from 2009, one of the psychologists who worked at the hospital said, “The achievement scored big with the community. For now, the writers’ group had status—but not quite in the manner the group’s leaders had intended. Nonetheless, it did help the community look beyond its boundaries. And more residents wanted to transfer to the writers’ group.”
In Leibovitz’s book, he details how Cohen played 11 songs at Henderson Hospital and felt truly understood by his audience. “I’ve never felt so good playing before people,” he claimed. There was even a recording made by one of the nurses, but Cohen requested that it be kept private.
The singer ended up touring a few other psychiatric hospitals during his career, such as in Montreal and Napa State. Cohen once said (via Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: interviews and encounters), “Those people are in the same landscape as the songs come out of. I feel that they understand them”.
