Leonard Cohen’s five favourite songwriters
When Leonard Cohen started penning songs, writing seemed to come naturally to him due to his background as a poet and a novelist. Inspired by writers like William Wordsworth, William Butler Yeats and Jack Kerouac, Cohen dedicated himself to literature, releasing several novels and poetry books throughout the 1950s and ‘60s.
By the late 1960s, he decided that music might be a more fruitful career, setting his poetic musings to guitar and playing shows in New York. His debut album, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, was released in 1967. It was relatively successful, and the musician soon proved that he had a sublime talent for writing songs, releasing many more acclaimed albums, like Songs of Love and Hate and New Skin for the Old Ceremony.
Yet, during his career, he encountered many other artists who he greatly admired and took inspiration from, considering them some of his favourite songwriters. From one of Greenwich Village’s most recognisable figures, Bob Dylan, to fellow Canadian-turned-Laurel Canyon queen Joni Mitchell, Cohen thoroughly appreciated their songwriting styles.
Here are five songwriters that Cohen seemed to covet the most, based on the songs he cited as his favourites and a collection of interviews.
Leonard Cohen’s five favourite songwriters:
Joni Mitchell
After meeting at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967, Cohen began dating Joni Mitchell, also from his native Canada, although the romance lasted mere months. Still, their relationship seemed to be based around a mutual love for each other’s incredible talents – although this seemed to be the cause of their downfall, with inevitable comparison taking hold.
Regardless, Cohen greatly admired her ability to pen such beautiful lyrics, which often addressed themes like romance, womanhood, nature, and identity. One of Cohen’s all-time favourite songs, according to a list he gave an interviewer in 1988, was ‘A Case of You’, from Blue, which is reportedly about Graham Nash, although several sources suggest that it could be about Cohen.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan arrived on the folk scene before Cohen, and the Canadian singer certainly took inspiration from him, respecting his pure dedication to his craft. They became friends, respecting one another immensely. For Cohen, Dylan was a supreme writer who seemed to be influenced by similar writers, subsequently seeing him as a man who was operating on the same wavelength.
Cohen cited several of his songs as his favourites, including ‘Tangled Up in Blue’, ‘Jokerman’ and ‘Brownsville Girl’, with the former seeming to be a particular love of his. Cohen seemed to have nothing but good things to say about Dylan, and he also admired the way he could write songs so fast, but it took Cohen a lot longer.
Hank Williams
On his quintessential 80s album I’m Your Man, Cohen included a song called ‘Tower of Song’, which includes a reference to Hank Williams, the iconic country singer who he found greatly inspiring. He sang, “I said to Hank Williams, ‘How lonely does it get?’/ Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet/ But I hear him coughing all night long/ Oh, a hundred floors above me/ In the Tower of Song.”
The singer thought so highly of Williams that paying homage to him in a song felt like the least he could do. “When I wrote about Hank Williams ‘a hundred floors above me in the tower of song,’ I’m not trying to present some kind of inverse modesty. I know where Hank Williams stands in the history of popular song… I feel myself a very minor writer,” he told BBC Radio One.
Tom Waits
Tom Waits emerged in the ‘70s after Cohen had already established himself as a singer, with Waits even citing the folk musician as an inspiration on his music. Yet, the influence flowed both ways, with Cohen praising Waits’ songwriting multiple times. Waits, like Cohen, is known for his instantly recognisable voice – it seems likely that Cohen would’ve been as impressed by Waits’ singing as he was with his writing.
To express his admiration, he once wrote the poem ‘Dream Brighton’ about Waits. He wrote, “Tom Waits singing—I hear him / I’m in a theatre—I’ve given a show to a large audience / My show went well—I can’t see him—I’m in my dressing room / But I can hear him—his music begin—it is so beautiful and original and sophisticated—so much better than mine—some mélange of harshness and sweetness.”
Roy Orbison
Known for hits like ‘Crying’ and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’, Roy Orbison became a sensation in the ‘60s, blending the influence of country and pop to create touching ballads, his rich voice soaring over dramatic instrumentation. While his career dipped in the ‘70s, he found a resurgence of popularity in the late ‘80s, during which he performed a show, Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night, which contained one of Cohen’s frequent collaborators, Jennifer Warnes.
She once revealed that when Cohen watched the show, he was inspired by Orbison, “He must have been deeply impressed by the show and was very respectful of Roy afterwards.” Around this time, Cohen cited ‘House Without Windows’ by Orbison as one of his favourite songs.
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