Leonard Cohen’s literary and biblical world of ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’
While writing Songs of Love and Hate, Leonard Cohen once said that, “absolutely everything was beginning to fall apart around me: my spirit, my intentions, my will. So I went into a deep and long depression.”
Across the course of eight tracks, Cohen explores the depths of his own anxieties, with many lyrics and atmospheres that quite literally sound like the haunt of depression itself. As the title suggests, much of this also comes from the ambiguities and complexities of human emotion, where one extreme is felt only in connection with the other, such as love and hate, sadness and joy.
From the dark and brooding atmosphere of ‘Avalanche’ to the painful rumination of death in ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’, this record is undeniably Cohen at his darkest, with many hard-hitting lines that often feel like the barest he’s ever allowed himself to be. One of the highlights – both on the record and across Cohen’s entire career – comes with ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’, a masterpiece that sees the singer addressing a man who took his lover away.
Beginning with a soft, sentimental progression and gorgeous background vocals, the song includes some of Cohen’s best-ever lines, not only in addressing the man as Cohen’s “lover” and his “killer”, but also in the pain he feels at seeing his opposion take “the trouble” from his lover’s eyes – something that he was never able to do himself, no matter how much he tried.
Funnily enough, Cohen once admitted that he was never actually happy with the song, but its rawness and honesty are precisely what make it near perfect, because after all, his despair is also intertwined with various textual and biblical references, many of which enhance the song’s intimacy while highlighting the anguish of having someone slipping away and disconnecting themselves from your life.
In the first verse, Cohen sings about the disconnect between his mindset and his environment, saying that New York is “cold”, but that where he lives – Clinton Street – there’s an atmosphere that he likes, with music playing “all through the evening”. Cohen lived on Clinton Street at the time, a lively area that likely both distracted him from and reminded him of his own troubles.
He then ruminates on what his lover could be doing and where she could be, asking her the question, “Did you ever go clear?” In various forums, people have connected this reference to the state of “Clear” in Scientology, something Cohen was himself linked to in the 1970s, and a likely indication of the estrangement that he felt as part of the love triangle.
Of course, “clear” could also mean the literal act of cleaning up, but given Cohen’s interest in religious practices, the alternative is also most certainly a plausible reference – this also aligns with the next reference to the German love song ‘Lili Marlene’, which Cohen talks about in the line: “You’d been to the station to meet every train, and / You came home without Lili Marlene.”
Here, Cohen alludes to yearning for something or someone who is no longer there, further adding to the broader melancholy in Cohen’s one-sided quest to find some sort of resolve, and much like the torn fabric of the little blue raincoat, Cohen discusses his own torment at being unable to patch up the frays of his own mind, using a handful of references to represent his own inability to find closure.
