After being noticed with his first two albums, Leonard Cohen enters a black period with the disc Songs of Love and Hate. An opus that will be less successful than Songs of Leonard Cohen and Songs from a Room, but on which we find one of the great songs of the Montreal poet, Famous Blue Raincoat.
Courtesy photo
Album cover
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Released on March 19, 1971, Leonard Cohen’s third album did not reach the same level of popularity as his first two albums released in 1967 and 1969. Songs of Love and Hate, who just turned 50, is a dark and very personal record.
“Everything was collapsing around me. All. My mind, my intentions and my will. I then entered a long period of depression, ”he said in an interview published in the magazine. Throat Culture, in 1991.
The first side of the album is devoted to hate songs. The second is about love.
Songs of Love and Hate fell in the charts with a 63rd place in Canada and a 145e in the USA. The 44-minute opus did well, however, in the Netherlands (2e place), United Kingdom (4e place) and Australia (8th place).
The Westmount-born singer, songwriter and singer was 36 when he showed up at Studio A in Columbia, Nashville, with songs hanging around his boxes. Cohen dreamed of recording in this Tennessee town.
39 million plays
The eight songs were recorded between September 22 and 26, 1970, a few weeks after his legendary performance at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Leonard Cohen worked with Bob Johnston, who had directed Songs from a Room and with a new team of musicians, united under the name The Army, led by guitarist Ron Cornelius.
Microphones have been installed all over the studio and even on the ceiling.
“I wanted to use as much echo as possible. I wanted this album to sound better than anything that had been done before, ”said the director.
Famous Blue Raincoat is the centerpiece of this album, on which we find the titles Avalanche, Last Year’s Man and Joan of Arc, a dialogue between Joan of Arc and the fire which is consuming her at the stake.
Famous Blue Raincoat has 39 million plays on the Spotify portal. It’s Leonard Cohen’s most popular track after Hallelujah, Suzanne and You Want it Darker.
Guitarist Ron Cornelius was convinced that this song, which was covered by Tori Amos, Joan Baez and Jennifer Warnes, was going to become important.
“We played it a lot before recording it and we knew it would be big. You could see the reactions of the public, like at the Royal Albert Hall in London, going crazy. You could feel it. If I had to choose my favorite song from the album, it would be this one, ”he said in an interview with the specialist site Songfacts.
A true story
Famous Blue Raincoat tells the story of a love trio. It is a letter written to another man who is wearing a blue raincoat. A true story that Leonard Cohen says he forgot.
“I always had the impression that an invisible man seduced the woman I was with, but I no longer know if this man existed or if he was imaginary. I also always felt like this man in my relationship with other couples, or that there is always such a character in a marriage. I don’t remember exactly, but I had the impression that there was always a third person, sometimes me, sometimes another man, sometimes another woman ”, he confided, in 1994, when of an interview with the BBC.
Leonard Cohen admitted to preferring the version he reworked and which can be found on Jennifer Warnes’ album. A version that he described as more coherent than that of Songs of Love and Hate, which he considered to be unfinished.
“This piece, just like Bird on the Wire, was never really completely finished, but they were good enough to use. It must be said that with the poverty of the pieces which are on my recordings, I cannot afford to eliminate one as good as this one. It’s one of the best songs I’ve written, but the lyrics are too mysterious, too opaque, ”he said in 1993 in the magazine. Details.
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