History Music / SongsOfLeonardCohen

''Songs of Leonard Cohen'' is the debut album by Music/LeonardCohen, released in 1967. Cohen was already established as a published poet; his first book of poetry, ''Let Us Compare Mythologies'', was published in 1956, eleven years before ''Songs of Leonard Cohen''. He was persuaded by Music/JudyCollins, amongst others, to set some of his poems to music. Collins had already adapted and recorded Cohen's poem "Suzanne Takes You Down", from his 1966 collection ''Parasites Of Heaven'', as "Suzanne" for her 1966 album ''In My Life'', and the song kicks off this album. ''Songs of Leonard Cohen'' set the tone for much of Cohen's career; the songs are predominantly melancholy and deal with parting, depression, self-harm and suicide, but also feature interwoven themes of sex, religion and politics with a dry and self-effacing wit and intelligent, profound lyrics. It also established a pattern of being much more popular in Europe than in his native North America.

* {{Eskimo}}: "One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong"
-->''An Eskimo showed me a movie he'd recently taken of you\\
The poor man could hardly stop shivering\\
His lips and his fingers were blue\\
I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes\\
And I guess he just never got warm''

''Songs of Leonard Cohen'' is the debut album by Music/LeonardCohen, released in 1967. Cohen was already established as a published poet; his first book of poetry, ''Let Us Compare Mythologies'', was published in 1956, eleven years before ''Songs of Leonard Cohen''. He was persuaded by Music/JudyCollins, amongst others, to set some of his poems to music. Collins had already adapted and recorded Cohen's poem "Suzanne Takes You Down", from his 1966 collection ''Parasites Of Heaven'', as "Suzanne" for her 1966 album ''In My Life'', and the song kicks off this album.''Songs of Leonard Cohen'' set the tone for much of Cohen's career; the songs are predominantly melancholy and deal with parting, depression, self-harm and suicide, but also feature interwoven themes of sex, religion and politics with a dry and self-effacing wit and intelligent, profound lyrics. It also established a pattern of being much more popular in Europe than in his native North America.

* BiTheWay: "Teachers"

Three of the songs in this album was used as the musical accompaniment for Creator/RobertAltman's ''Film/McCabeAndMrsMiller'': ''The Stranger Song, Sisters of Mercy, Winter Lady''.

* OneNightStand: "Winter Lady" describes one. It may not be literal, there's more than a hint of a drug analogy.

* AntiLoveSong: "Winter Lady"

* CoverVersion: "Suzanne". Originally published by Cohen as a poem but previously recorded as a song by both Music/JudyCollins and Music/JoniMitchell.

I never said that I was brave"''\\
--'''So Long, Marianne'''

--->''Several girls embraced me then\\

--->''Several girls embraced me then''\\

--> ''Trav'ling lady stay awhile''
--> ''until the night is over.''
--> ''I'm just a station on your way,''
--> ''I know I'm not your lover.''

--> ''And Jesus was a sailor''
--> ''When he walked upon the water''
--> ''And he spent a long time watching''
--> ''From his lonely wooden tower''
--> ''And when he knew for certain''
--> ''Only drowning men could see him''
--> ''He said "All men will be sailors then''
--> ''Until the sea shall free them"''
--> ''But he himself was broken''
--> ''Long before the sky would open''
--> ''Forsaken, almost human''
--> ''He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone''
--> ''And you want to travel with him''
--> ''And you want to travel blind''
--> ''And you think maybe you'll trust him''
--> ''For he's touched your perfect body with his mind''.

--> ''He was just some Joseph looking for a manger''

--> ''I ate and ate and ate''
--> ''no I did not miss a plate''

--> ''Several girls embraced me then''
--> ''I was embraced by men''
--> ''Is my passion perfect?''
--> ''No, do it once again''.

--> ''It's time we began / to laugh and cry, and cry and laugh, about it all again''.

--> ''But now it's come to distances and both of us must try''.

--> ''And then leaning on your window sill\\

--> ''An Eskimo showed me a movie he'd recently taken of you''
--> ''The poor man could hardly stop shivering''
--> ''His lips and his fingers were blue''
--> ''I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes''
--> ''And I guess he just never got warm''

--> ''The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas''

--> "Several girls embraced me then"
--> I was embraced by men
--> Is my passion perfect?
--> No, do it once again"

--> "I was embraced by men"
--> "Is my passion perfect?"
--> "No, do it once again"

'''''Songs of Leonard Cohen''''' is the debut album by Music/LeonardCohen, released in 1967. Cohen was already established as a published poet; his first book of poetry, ''Let Us Compare Mythologies'', was published in 1956, eleven years before ''Songs of Leonard Cohen''. He was persuaded by Music/JudyCollins, amongst others, to set some of his poems to music. Collins had already adapted and recorded Cohen's poem "Suzanne Takes You Down", from his 1966 collection ''Parasites Of Heaven'', as "Suzanne" for her 1966 album ''In My Life'', and the song kicks off this album.''Songs of Leonard Cohen'' set the tone for much of Cohen's career; the songs are predominantly melancholy and deal with parting, depression, self-harm and suicide, but also feature interwoven themes of sex, religion and politics with a dry and self-effacing wit and intelligent, profound lyrics. It also established a pattern of being much more popular in Europe than in his native North America.

--'''So Long Marianne'''

'''''Songs of Leonard Cohen''''' is the debut album by Music/LeonardCohen, released in 1967. Cohen was already established as a published poet; his first book of poetry, ''Mythologies'', was published in 1956, eleven years before Songs of Leonard Cohen. He was persuaded by Music/JudyCollins, amongst others, to set some of his poems to music. Collins had already adapted and recorded Cohen's poem "Suzanne Takes You Down", from his 1966 collection "Parasites Of Heaven", as "Suzanne" for her 1966 album "In My Life", and the song kicks off this album.''Songs of Leonard Cohen'' set the tone for much of Cohen's career; the songs are predominantly melancholy and deal with parting, depression, self-harm and suicide, but also feature interwoven themes of sex, religion and politics with a dry and self-effacing wit and intelligent, profound lyrics. It also established a pattern of being much more popular in Europe than in his native North America.

[[caption-width-right:225:''We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky'']]

-> ''For now I need your hidden love\\

I never said that I was brave''\\

'''''Songs of Leonard Cohen''''' is the debut album by Music/LeonardCohen, released in 1967. Cohen was already established as a published poet; his first book of poetry, ''Mythologies'', was published in 1956, eleven years before Songs of Leonard Cohen. He was persuaded by Music/JudyCollins, amongst others, to set some of his poems to music. Collins had already adapted and recorded Cohen's poem "Suzanne Takes You Down", from his 1966 collection "Parasites Of Heaven", as "Suzanne" for her 1966 album "In My Life", and the song kicks off this album. "Songs of Leonard Cohe" set the tone for much of Cohen's career; the songs are predominantly melancholy and deal with parting, depression, self-harm and suicide, but also feature interwoven themes of sex, religion and politics with a dry and self-effacing wit and intelligent, profound lyrics. It also established a pattern of being much more popular in Europe than in his native North America.

--> ''But now it's come to distances and both of us must try''.

'''''Songs of Leonard Cohen''''' is the debut album by Music/LeonardCohen, released in 1967. Cohen was already established as a published poet; his first book of poetry, {{Mythologies}}, was published in 1956, eleven years before Songs of Leonard Cohen. He was persuaded by JudyCollins, amongst others, to set some of his poems to music. Collins had already adapted and recorded Cohen's poem SuzanneTakesYouDown, from his 1966 collection ParasitesOfHeaven, as {{Suzanne}} for her 1966 album InMyLife, and the song kicks off this album. Songs of Leonard Cohen set the tone for much of Cohen's career; the songs are predominantly melancholy and deal with parting, depression, self-harm and suicide, but also feature interwoven themes of sex, religion and politics with a dry and self-effacing wit and intelligent, profound lyrics. It also established a pattern of being much more popular in Europe than in his native North America.

# Suzanne - 3:48
# Master Song - 5:55
# Winter Lady - 2:15
# The Stranger Song - 5:00
# Sisters of Mercy - 3:32

# So Long Marianne - 5:38
# Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye - 2:55
# Stories of the Street - 4:35
# Teachers - 3:01
# One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong - 4:23

** Winter Lady: although he wants her to come back to bed and stay for a while longer.
** So Long Marianne: ''It's time we began / to laugh and cry, and cry and laugh, about it all again''.
** Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye: ''But now it's come to distances and both of us must try''.
* CharacterTitle: Suzanne; So Long Marianne.
* CrapsackWorld: Stories of the Street: ''The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas''.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Not only monochrome but sepia-tinted. something that suggested old-fashionedness even in 1967. Cohen was 33 when the album appeared, not exactly in the first flush of youth for a rock star.

** Winter Lady: Ends with the singer pleading with his one-night-stand to come back for the rest of the night even as she stands in the doorway ready to leave.
** The whole album concludes with One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong, which ends with something like a wail of despair. Although the song does have an air of tongue-in-cheek self-parody about it.
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Stories of the Street:

* FreudianTrio: Master Song can be construed as being about conflicts between aspects of the personality.
* TheGambler: The Stranger Song uses poker as a metaphor for an abusive relationship.
* IntercourseWithYou: Suzanne, based on Cohen's real-life relationship with Montreal social hostess SuzanneVerdal. Both Cohen and Verdal have publicly averred that their relationship was strictly platonic and the sexual implications were pure (or impure if you prefer) wishful thinking on Leonard's part.
* LyricalDissonance: So Long Marianne is rather jaunty, especially by Cohen's standards. So the references to depression and suicide come as quite a shock.
* NaughtyNuns: The Sisters of Mercy in the song of that name take your confession as you lie down beside them.
* NonAppearingTitle:
** The album title does not appear in any of the songs
** More surprisingly, the song title does not appear in the lyrics of Master Song, Winter Lady, The Stranger Song or One of Us Cannot Be Wrong.
* OneNightStand: Winter Lady describes one. It may not be literal, there's more than a hint of a drug analogy.
* OneWomanSong: Suzanne; So Long Marianne.
* OneWordTitle: Suzanne; Teachers
* SecondPersonNarration: The Stranger Song.
* WordSaladLyrics: All the way through, but Teachers in particular takes some unravelling. One of Us Cannot Be Wrong starts to sound like he's playing with his audience.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/revolver_lp_cover_larger_image_6338.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..."'']]

->''"This almost flawless album can be seen as the peak of the Beatles' creative career. They were later to undertake more ambitious projects which would be crowned with equal critical acclaim, but ''Revolver'' is the kind of achievement which any artist would be more than satisfied to regard as some kind of culmination to his career. Nothing less than that."''\\
--'''Roy Carr & Tony Tyler''', ''The Beatles: An Illustrated Record''

'''''Revolver''''' is the seventh studio album by Music/TheBeatles, released in 1966. To quote Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}: "Placed at number 1 in the All-Time Top 1000 Albums and number 3 in the ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, the album is often regarded as one of the greatest achievements in music history and one of the Beatles' greatest studio achievements."

''Revolver'' was conceived during an unusually long break in the Fab Four's schedule in early 1966.[[note]]They were supposed to film their third movie, ''A Talent for Loving'', during this period, but the project was canceled.[[/note]] Their music had already started becoming more sophisticated on their previous album, ''Music/RubberSoul'', and they took advantage of the free time to develop their sound even further. Also, they spent the better part of three months in the studio (which was unheard of in TheSixties), giving them plenty of time to experiment. The result was a groundbreaking album that was a major influence on the nascent PsychedelicRock scene, but it has transcended its era and is still highly regarded today. The "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" single was also recorded during these sessions.

The album is the subject of two books: ''[[http://revolverbook.co.uk/ Abacadabra!: The Complete Story of the Beatles' ''Revolver'']]'' (2006), an e-book by Ray Newman, and ''[[http://revolverbook.com/ Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll]]'' (2012) by Robert Rodriguez (the music writer, not [[Creator/RobertRodriguez the filmmaker]]).

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!! Tracklist (* = Not included in the original US version):

[[AC: Side One]]

# "Taxman" - 2:39
# "Eleanor Rigby" - 2:08
# "I'm Only Sleeping" * - 3:02
# "Love You To" - 3:01
# "Here, There And Everywhere" - 2:26
# "Yellow Submarine" - 2:40
# "She Said She Said" - 2:37

[[AC: Side Two]]

# "Good Day Sunshine" - 2:10
# "And Your Bird Can Sing" * - 2:02
# "For No One" - 2:01
# "Doctor Robert" * - 2:15
# "I Want To Tell You" - 2:30
# "Got To Get You Into My Life" - 2:31
# "Tomorrow Never Knows" - 2:57

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!!Principal Members:

* Music/GeorgeHarrison - guitar, backing and lead vocals, bass, sitar, tambura, maracas, tambourine, sound effects
* Music/JohnLennon - lead vocals, guitar, piano, organ, harmonium, cowbell, tambourine, maracas, sound effects
* Music/PaulMcCartney - lead vocals, bass, guitar, piano, clavichord, sound effects
* Music/RingoStarr - drums, backing and lead vocals, tambourine, maracas

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!!Tomorrow never tropes:

* [[AbsenteeActor Absentee Musician]]: Several tracks have at least one Beatle missing.
** Music/JohnLennon doesn't appear on "Love You To".
** "For No One" has only Music/PaulMcCartney, Music/RingoStarr and French horn player Alan Civil.
** "She Said She Said", the last track recorded, may qualify as well. Paul once told a biographer that he left the session in a huff after arguing with the other Beatles, leaving Music/GeorgeHarrison to cover for him on bass. Robert Rodriguez says the story is probably correct.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: In the post UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan-UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher era, it can be hard to believe that "One for you nineteen for me" is not an exaggeration; the British government in 1966 really did have a 95% top marginal tax rate.
* AndThenISaid: "She Said, She Said"
--> ''Who put all those things in your head? Things that make me feel that I'm mad.''
--> '''Cause you're making me feel like I've never been born.''
* BreakupSong: "For No One" is about the end of "A love that should have lasted years".
* BrilliantButLazy[=/=]HeavySleeper[=/=]LazyBum: How John portrays himself in "I'm Only Sleeping".
-->''Everybody seems to think I'm lazy\\
I don't mind, I think they're crazy''
* BrokenBird: Mentioned in "And Your Bird Can Sing".
-->''When your bird is broken\\
Will it bring you down?''
* BrokenRecord: "Tomorrow Never Knows".
** ''Of the beginning, of the beginning, of the beginning, of the beginning, of the beginning, of the beginning.....''
* CallAndResponseSong: Slightly subverted. The backing vocals in the bridge provide the call and George provides the response in "Taxman".
* CannotSpitItOut: The subject of "I Want to Tell You".
* CharacterTitle: "Taxman", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Doctor Robert".
* CoolShades: All four Beatles wear LennonShades (for the first time) on the back cover photo.
* CreatorCameo: The GrammyAward-winning album cover was designed by Klaus Voormann, a German artist and musician whom the Beatles had befriended in their Hamburg days. If you look closely, you can see Voormann's face and signature in George's hair, just beneath John's lips.
* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The album cover, designed by Klaus Voormann, who would later also design the cover of ''Music/TheBeatlesAnthology''.
* DownerEnding:
--> ''Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name\\
Nobody came\\
Father [=McKenzie=], wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave\\
No one was saved''
* DrFeelgood: "Doctor Robert", apparently based on a real-life medical drug peddler.
--> ''When you're down he'll pick you up: Dr. Robert''.
* EchoingAcoustics: "Tomorrow Never Knows", as Lennon wanted to sound "like a hundred chanting Tibetan monks".
* FaceOnTheCover: A cartoon portrait of the band, illustrated with smaller images of themselves interspersed throughout the picture.
* TheEndOfTheBeginning: The final line of "Tomorrow Never Knows".
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: "Got You Get Into My Life". Not a song about yearning for a love in your life. But about drugs.
* IntimidatingRevenueService[=/=]VillainSong: "Taxman", inspired by how the British government wanted to take too much out of George's income; at the time, the Beatles were being taxed at a marginal income tax rate of ''95%'' (a fairly common marginal rate for the top tax bracket in European countries at the time, and not the highest--some Nordics applied ''99%'' income tax brackets). This is noted in the lyrics ("One for you/Nineteen for me").
* {{Malaproper}}: The title "Tomorrow Never Knows" came from one of Ringo's weird sentences, just like ''Film/AHardDaysNight''.
* MelismaticVocals: In "Love You To" and pulled off by Paul at the very end of "I Want to Tell You".
* MundaneMadeAwesome: "Taxman" (about the irritation of paying taxes) and "I'm Only Sleeping" (about sleeping).
* NewSoundAlbum:
** Several songs have little or no precedent in The Beatles' previous music. They'd used a sitar on ''Rubber Soul''[='=]s "Norwegian Wood", but "Love You To" was overtly influenced by Indian music and philosophy. "Got to Get You Into My Life", a tribute to Creator/{{Motown}} and SoulMusic in general, marked the group's first use of a horn section. (Music/EarthWindAndFire would later cover the song, bringing things full circle.) Meanwhile, "Tomorrow Never Knows" was the band's first excursion into the avant garde; it anticipates ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum'''s "Revolution #9", as well as John's early collaborations with Music/YokoOno.
** It was also the first use of ADT "automatic double tracking" developed by Abbey Road studio engineer Ken Townsend at the behest of John Lennon. Townsend devised a system of creating a double tracking effect without the necessity of recording another vocal by playing back the original vocal slightly out of sync through a tape delay and recording it together with the original.
* NonAppearingTitle: The album title does not appear in any of the lyrics. "Love You To"[[note]]although the lyric "I'll make love to you" comes close[[/note]] and "Tomorrow Never Knows" also don't get a mention in the songs themselves.
* OdeToIntoxication: Did you think "Got to Get You Into My Life" was a love song? It is. A love song about how much Paul [=McCartney=] loved to smoke marijuana.
* OnlySaneMan: "I'm Only Sleeping" (See lyric under BrilliantButLazy above).
* OneManSong: "Taxman".
* OneWordTitle: The album itself and "Taxman".
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: In common with all the previous Beatles' albums there's a photo of the band on the cover, but for the first time, they aren't looking at the camera, but at each other. (Specifically, the other three are all looking at Ringo, who's looking past the camera and wearing [[OpaqueLenses sunglasses]].)
* ProtagonistTitle: "Eleanor Rigby" about a poor woman who died alone and forgotten.
* ProtestSong: "Taxman".
* PunnyName: [[WhatAreRecords This one might take a second to figure out.]]
** Before settling on ''Revolver'', the group went through several other {{Working Title}}s for the album. One (probably facetious) suggestion from Ringo was ''After Geography'', a play on Music/TheRollingStones' ''Music/{{Aftermath}}'' from earlier that year.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Several songs.
** "She Said She Said" is based on a famous incident from 1965. The Beatles [[note]]along with their entourage and at least two members of Music/TheByrds[[/note]] were hanging out with Peter Fonda, and all except Paul were tripping on LSD. When a nervous George said "I feel like I'm dying", Fonda tried to reassure him by saying "I know what it's like to be dead"; he went on to tell the band that he'd almost died from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound as a child, and death was nothing to worry about. John replied, "Who put all that shit in your head? You're making me feel like I've never been born". He based the song on a {{Gender Flip}}ped, {{Bowdlerized}} version of this conversation.
** "Got to Get You into My Life" and "For No One" by Paul are based on his experience of pot and his failing relationship with his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher, respectively.
** "Taxman" by George attacks the progressive tax laws introduced by UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson, which somehow failed to stop George from becoming a multi-millionaire. It bears mentioning that 95% was the ''marginal'' tax rate; that is, all of George's income before he reached the 95% threshold was taxed at a lower value. (The song also mentions Wilson's rival UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath for good measure.)
** "I'm Only Sleeping", based on John's laziness.
** There actually ''is'' a gravestone on St. Peter's Church in Liverpool with the name Eleanor Rigby (1898-1939) on it! Paul has commented that he might have seen the gravestone during his youth and subconsciously remembered it, for he didn't deliberately name the character in the song after her.
* RealSongThemeTune: Both of the Beatles' animated incarnations used a song from this album as theme music. "And Your Bird Can Sing" was the opening for the third season of their [[WesternAnimation/TheBeatles Saturday morning]] BandToon. And then there's ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine''...
* RecordProducer: George Martin, as usual.
* RhymingWithItself: In "Got to Get You Into My Life". 'There' is rhymed with 'there', 'you' with 'you' and 'life' with 'life'. From another perspective, it rhymes "find there" with "mind there" and "hold you" with "told you."
* {{Sampling}}: Tape loops used in "Tomorrow Never Knows" include:
** A "laughing" voice, often assumed to be Paul [=McCartney=] and played at double-speed (the "seagull" sound)
** An orchestral chord of B flat major (from a Sibelius symphony)
** A fast electric guitar phrase in C major, reversed and played at double-speed
** Another guitar phrase with heavy tape echo, with a B flat chord provided either by guitar, organ or possibly a Mellotron Mk II
** A sitar-like descending scalar phrase played on an electric guitar, reversed and played at double-speed
* SecondPersonNarration: "For No One" uses it.
* ShoutOut: "Taxman" provides a shout-out to British politicians UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath and UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson.
* StopAndGo: "I'm only sleeping...[Pause]...keeping an eye on the world going by my window..."
* StudioChatter: At the beginning of "Taxman", George slowly counts "one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four" on the right channel against a backdrop of studio background noises, before Paul's much faster "one, two, three, four!" on the left leads into the song itself.
** One can hear someone saying, "Yawn, Paul" before someone, supposedly Paul, yawns in "I'm Only Sleeping".
** John, very quietly, repeats "She feels good" after Paul sings that phrase in "Good Day Sunshine".
* TakeThat: "Taxman" and, possibly, "And Your Bird Can Sing" (see WordSaladLyrics below).
* TaxmanTakesTheWinnings: The message of "Taxman".
* TruckDriversGearChange: Right at the end of "Good Day Sunshine".
* WordSaladLyrics: The enigmatic lyrics of "And Your Bird Can Sing" are very open to interpretation. Jonathan Gould (author of ''Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America'') theorizes that John intended them as a TakeThat to Music/FrankSinatra for Ol' Blue Eyes' criticism of The Beatles and rock music in general.[[note]]Sinatra underwent some evolution on this, covering the Beatles' "Something" and striking up a friendship with Music/DavidBowie in the mid '70s.[[/note]] Musicologist Alan Pollack instead suggested they reflect a kind of mid-life crisis John was undergoing at the time, also hinted at in his infamous Maureen Cleave interview. Another theory is that the song is a TakeThat to [[Music/TheRollingStones Mick Jagger]] and the "bird"[[note]]"Bird" being English slang for a young woman at the time[[/note]] in the song referred to his then girlfriend, Music/MarianneFaithfull.

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