17 Dec 08, 6.38pm
The song of the week is undoubtedly Hallelujah. But sitting at home writing the Fantastic Fireworks blog the version I'm listening to is not by X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke but by its original performer and composer, Leonard Cohen. It's not one of my favourite Cohen songs but it's another example of the depth of his repertoire. A couple of years ago I was listening to Desert Island discs when Kim Cattrall included another lesser known Cohen gem, Closing Time, as one of her eight choices. But for all those of us who remember Cohen's debut album The Songs of Leonard Cohen, released in 1967, songs like So Long Marianne, Suzanne & Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye are the ones we grew up with. There was an excellent Radio 4 programme recently entitled Leonard & Marianna which charted the the early life of a struggling Canadian poet and his Norwegian muse on the Greek island of Hydra. It inspired one of popular music's most emotive love songs. So Long Marianne, it's time we began, to laugh and cry, and cry and laugh, about it all again.
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2 comments:
Forget Cohen's original which (unlike most originals) is second rate. Check out the late, great Jeff Buckley's version which is pure class.
I'd been listening to that version too! Didn't realise it's Cohen's second most covered song after, surprised to discover, Suzanne, which has more than 100 covers.
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