”Turn! Turn! Turn!’: Leonard Cohen’s favourite Judy Collins song
For many of a certain age, their first encounter with Leonard Cohen was in the sardonic quip on Nirvana’s ‘Pennyroyal Tea’, frontman Kurt Cobain dropping the line “Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/So I can sigh eternally” with biting ambiguity as to his thoughts on the late Canadian singer-songwriter.
From then on, Cohen had unfairly been tarnished by a Gen X perception of being a member of music’s old guard that 1990s alternative America was rallying against. The line in question was interpreted with greater sting than intended, merely a wry remark seeking catharsis from Cohen’s work but sinking into a deeper funk.
Indeed, first impressions of Cohen’s dry folk delivery and surface mordancy can leave a listener cold when grappling with his work, but his guarded magic swiftly reveals itself if one’s paying attention. Even before the end of his 1967 debut Songs of Leonard Cohen, a richly literate confessional of love, regret, and firey loins belies his subdued front, fuelling a deeply personal songbook that would see him through the 1970s as a folk artist always at odds with his peers owing to his acerbic lyrical foundations.
The latent humour and sarcasm would truly rear its head into the 1980s. Swapping acoustic guitars for synthesizers and digital production, 1988’s I’m Your Man ushered a new era for Cohen, that of the wisecrack sage commenting on global politics and social plight with a piquant mixture of mirth and sorrow, surviving a decade that hadn’t been kind to his contemporaries with artistic vitality and a buoyed rejuvenation for the upcoming 1990s.
In 2010, the Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox CD compilation was released, a 25-track collation of the artist and songs that “illustrate the diverse and often surprising selection of music that has inspired and influenced Leonard Cohen throughout his career,” according to its liner notes. Among inclusions such as Hank Williams, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and Ray Charles, Seattle folk and country artist Judy Collins makes an appearance among the popular music heavyweights collated.
Collins was an instrumental break in Cohen’s music career. After several years of middling success as a writer and novelist, Collins’ cover of ‘Suzanne’ before his debut LP was even out thrust Cohen to the centre of contemporary folk attention, featured on 1966’s In My Life along with his ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’. Collins’ had an innate understanding of Cohen’s lyrical complexity, stating in a 2009 interview: “People think Leonard is dark, but actually his sense of humour and his edge on the world is extremely light.”
Collins would forge a successful career in folk, as well as later pop, crafting affectionate covers of a range of artists. Her take on ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)’ was selected in Cohen’s jukebox litany of song favourites, and itself was a celebrated cover by folk-rock outfit The Byrds, the original penned by socialist rabble-rouser Pete Seeger back in 1959, probably the only single to achieve moderate success with lyrics almost entirely lifted from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 nearly quoted verbatim.
Cohen’s open character and fallibilities were summed up succinctly by Collins. “He was a good friend, a loyal friend – always presented me with all these songs he wanted me to record,” she told The Daily Telegraph in 2020.
Concluding: “He was generous to a fault, one of the most interesting people I ever knew, and a gentleman on all scores – except if you were having an affair with him, and then all bets were off. I never did, although so many people assume I might have done.”
