The songwriter Leonard Cohen thought was in “another category” to everyone else
Praise from Leonard Cohen is surely like praise from god.
Of the younger artists he bestowed his kind words upon, each spoke of it as if they’d felt some kind of otherworldly knighting sword touch their shoulders, giving them a compliment that literally no one else could ever beat. But as Cohen himself dipped around the music world, there were people who loomed large in that same way over him.
Inspiration is a river; everyone’s work gets poured in, floating down and flowing from generation to generation. It’s a lineage as things get passed down, like how the work of the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s and beyond still comes up in modern music. Cohen is a vital one in that way, as it’s tough to find any artist enamoured with lyricism and working in that folk vein that doesn’t revere him. His legacy still towers over the modern music world and up-and-coming artists, as clearly, his contribution to the stream of influence was great.
However, part of people’s adoration for Cohen undeniably comes from a slight jealousy. For so many fans, it’s a thing of constant mourning to accept that they never got to live in the 1960s, never got to see their favourite artists in their prime, or even see them at all.
The idea of being a young person in that golden age does feel like a dream, though. Just imagine getting to run to the record store, buzzing to buy the new album from your favourite band, bringing it home, and it’s Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Or imagine getting to witness it in real time as Dylan cast off from the folk scene and went electric, getting to read the various reactions in the press, and getting to hear the music back when it was wild and fresh.
Cohen had that privilege as he landed in the Greenwich folk scene and quickly became a mainstay there, brushing shoulders with this crowd and, especially, falling into the orbit of an artist who truly appeared like that kind of creative god to him.
In his eyes, back then especially, no one could do it like Joni Mitchell. “Joni was some kind of musical monster, that her gift somehow put her in another category from the other folksingers,” he said. Almost suggesting that her talent was so huge that it was even quite isolating, he added, “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.”
This intense admiration not only fueled Cohen’s lifelong love of Mitchell’s work, but it also fuelled a brief yet creatively passionate love affair between the two, sparked by their deep mutual admiration.
“All my songs seem so naive by comparison,” Mitchell said about her experience first hearing ‘Suzanne’, adding, “It raised the standard of what I wanted to write.” Just as she loomed large in Cohen’s view, the feeling was very much mutual, as she once said, “I’m only a groupie for Picasso and Leonard,” placing him alongside the iconic painter.
To Cohen, Mitchell was an artist above all others, and clearly she felt the same, singing of Cohen – “You are a holy man on the FM radio.”
