Leonard Cohen’s favourite Joni Mitchell song
Both Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell emerged in the mid-1960s, becoming two of folk’s most influential and definitive voices. Naturally, the pair were drawn to each other when they first met at Newport Folk Festival in 1967, and they soon began a short-lived relationship.
The musicians were only together for a few months until the relationship fell apart. However, they remained close friends for decades until Cohen passed away on November 7th, 2016, which happened to coincide with Mitchell’s 73rd birthday.
Mitchell was greatly inspired by Cohen, who influenced her approach to songwriting. She once stated: “Leonard was an early influence. I remember thinking when I heard his songs for the first time that I was not worldly. My work seemed very young and naive in comparison. At the time I met him I was around 24, around the time of my first record. But thematically, I wanted to be broader than he was. In many ways Leonard was a boudoir poet.”
Of course, when a relationship occurs between two musicians, it’s only inevitable that songs will be penned in response. Mitchell was no stranger to writing songs about her lovers, and Cohen was no exception. ‘Rainy Night House’ is about the pair’s relationship coming to an end, once stating, “I went one time to his home, and I fell asleep in his old room, and he sat up and watched me sleep. He sat up all night, and he watched me see who in the world I could be.”
While ‘Rainy Night House’ is confirmed to be about Cohen, her track ‘A Case of You’, taken from her landmark record Blue, is also rumoured to be about the Canadian musician. Although the subject of the song has never been officially revealed – and there’s equal speculation that Mitchell wrote the track with Graham Nash or James Taylor in mind – that hasn’t stopped Cohen from citing it as one of his all-time favourite songs.
Just as Mitchell admired Cohen’s songwriting skills, the feelings were mutual. In a 1984 interview, he said, “Joni was some kind of musical monster, that her gift somehow put her in another category from the other folksingers. There was a certain ferocity associated with her gift. She was like a storm. She was a beautiful young woman who had a remarkable talent.”
‘A Case Of You’ contains some of Mitchell’s most poignant lyrics, in which she reflects on lost love and her ex-lover’s impact on her. During the chorus, she spills some of her most beautiful lines about being in love with someone incredibly intoxicating, “Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine/ You taste so bitter and so sweet/ Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling/ And I would still be on my feet.”
The song remains one of Mitchell’s most spectacular cuts, with Nash also selecting it as one of his favourites. He said: “There are so many brilliant songs. I tend to go towards a simple song, and one of my favourites is ‘A Case Of You.’ I think it’s an unbelievably beautifully recorded, simple folk song. It’s beautiful.”
Listen to the song below.
