#387 Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen

Another pickup from my trawl through the lists of great 1969 albums, which lead me to Song from a Room, which lead me to read that his debut was maybe actually a better place to start. And here we are.

This is built, nearly entirely, on its lyrics. Which is tough for me, since I often tune words out a bit, and when they do get their hooks in, it often takes a lot of listens before they get scratched into my soul. But I made an effort to listen, giving this some long train rides and walks from train stations and a healthy dallop of my attention.

Things start off mostly strong. I dug the Norwegian Wood meets Chillout Tent tale of Suzanne, and Master Song's surging pluckings give a powerful undertone to its story. Through the middle though, some songs just don't quite pop for me - Stranger Song reads a bit half-baked and limp to my ear, and Sisters of Mercy is overbusy and cluttered given its slow pace.

I also have to remind myself though, 1967. This was some rich, heady stuff thenabouts, and its echoes can be heard in singer/songwriter types from Nick Drake to Stephin Merritt. And then there's that album closer, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, that is just a dense, masterful crusher of a song, the kind that I didn't know we knew how to make thenabouts, and that holds up to this day along such dense, monumental, building, quietly epic closers as The Bewlay Brothers, Two Headed Boy pt. 2, and Motion Picture Soundtrack, ebony obelisks, each, looming with dark, passive, inexorable power. That alone pushes this otherwise historically-interesting-but-not-quite-for-me album into the high end of 3.5/5

You might like this if: You like languidly paced, morose, dense, singer/songwriter ballads, and hunger for the occasional glint of beauty from the fog.