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He was already a poet and an author when his first album was released, and Leonard Cohen brought a literary perspective to his music that immediately garnered comparisons to Bob Dylan. Released at the end of 1967, Songs Of Leonard Cohen had very little to do with the prevailing psychedelia of the moment, but it stamped Cohen as a visionary songwriter. Here is a song-by-song review of that memorable debut.

Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967, Columbia Records)

Side A

  A1. “Suzanne”
It’s been covered a bazillion times, but it’s hard to match the deadpan beauty of Cohen’s original. Seamlessly interweaving the spiritual and sexual, the words still somehow project innocence and wonder and are effortlessly poetic without an ounce of flab. It’s just an achingly pretty song.

  A2. “Master Song”
This one has a mysterious aura to it, but it casts a spell with the nimble, if cryptic, wordplay. I sometimes think that the narrator and the Master in the song are one and the same, but usually I don’t try to figure it out and just let it work its surrealistic magic.

  A3. “Winter Lady”
This one is just a postcard of a song, and it feels a bit inconsequential next to the more ambitious efforts that surround it.

  A4. “The Stranger Song”
Notice how Cohen’s structure finds room for internal rhymes but otherwise hews closely to the “–er” rhymes at the end of every line. This is a clever poetic technique that lends the song a kind of uneasy symmetry, trapping this character forever in a hopeless situation.

  A5. “Sisters of Mercy”
The subtle circus-like effects are a nice compliment to the basic acoustic guitar approach. Cohen finds salvation that you can safely say is a bit more secular than the title would imply.

Side B

  B1. “So Long, Marianne”
The country strings weave in and out of the lilting tune, and the female backing vocals make it sound like a really profound girl-group hit. The singer’s mixed feelings about this separation are futile in the face of its inevitability, but each of the many verses is like a snapshot that tells this sad story with disarming precision.

  B2. “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”
Probably the most accessible of the songs on the record, but it doesn’t suffer for it’s lack of complexity. Cohen is clear-eyed and level-headed about the situation, but the sad acoustic accompaniment lets everyone in on the heartbreak.

  B3. “Stories of the Street”
This one starts strong, with the first stanza ending with a poignant dichotomy: “One hand on my suicide/One hand on the rose.” But the focus wavers afterward and dilutes its power.

  B4. “Teachers”
The rapidly picked acoustic guitar sounds like the backdrop for a pessimistic gypsy fortune-teller, as Cohen wanders a foreboding scene unable to find relief or succor. This is an unsettling beauty, ending with the unanswered question: “Are your lessons done?”

  B5. “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong”
Bits of dark humor peek through in this memorable closer. Cohen sees all the bad signs surrounding a girl with a slew of broken hearts in her wake, and pursues anyway. But he breaks his straight face for the first time all album long with his unkempt wailing at song’s end, and in a funny way, it’s just as eloquent as any of his artful rhymes.

The Bottom Line

Very few songwriters have ever been able to approach the lyrical bar set by Dylan without crashing and burning in the process. But this album provided the first evidence that Leonard Cohen would rank as one of the precious few up to the challenge.

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