Smith, A. J. M., 54
Smith, Harry, 207–9, 217, 285
Smith, Patti, 162, 208
Smokey Life, The (album). See Recent Songs
“Smokey Life, The” (song), 317, 321
Snow, Mat, 356
Soldo, Dino, 483, 520
Solidarity movement, 345, 346
“So Long, Marianne,” 169, 186, 187, 191, 192, 194, 204, 264, 465, 499–500, 519
Some Kind of Record (event), 433–34
“Song of Bernadette,” 323, 350
Song of Leonard Cohen, 324, 325–26
Songs for Rebecca, 287, 288–89, 298, 321, 335
Songs from a Room, 87, 202, 211, 213–19, 240, 245, 248, 309, 484, 499, 520
Songs from the Life of Leonard Cohen, 366
Songs from the Road, 505–6, 516
Songs of Leonard Cohen, 167–71, 186–97, 193, 204, 251
Songs of Love and Hate, 213, 243, 245–49, 382
“Sparrows, The,” 45, 55
Spector, Phil, 285, 292–93, 294–308, 438–39, 453, 455, 466, 470
Spice-Box of Earth, The, 60, 64n, 76–77, 90, 92, 96–102, 442
Springsteen, Bruce, 376, 484
Steinberg, Arnold, 33–36, 40, 41, 61–62, 74
Stills, Stephen, 147
Stina Möter Leonard Cohen, 413–14
Stone, Oliver, 392
“Store Room,” 186, 291, 498–99
Stormy Clovers, 142, 143, 146, 152
“Story of Isaac,” 176, 218–19
Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, 320n, 393–94, 396
“Stranger Song,” 143, 149, 164, 166, 168, 177, 191, 192, 194–95, 252, 337, 469, 486
Straub, Dick, 497
Strip-Tease, 156
“Summertime,” 326
Sutherland, Betty, 47, 65, 68–69
Suzanne. See Elrod, Suzanne
“Suzanne” (poem), 126–28
“Suzanne” (song), 126–30, 149–50, 152, 153, 154, 159, 160–61, 163, 166, 168, 170, 172–74, 176, 179, 186, 187, 188, 192, 194, 201, 238, 415, 448–49, 490
“Tacoma Trailer,” 378–79, 438
“Take This Longing,” 162, 274
Take This Waltz (book), 397
“Take This Waltz” (song), 352–53, 357–58
“Teachers,” 191, 194
Tekakwitha, Catherine “Kateri,” 134, 138, 152
“Tennessee Waltz,” 441
Ten New Songs, 427–32, 434–36, 441, 444, 465–66, 468, 482
“Terez and Deanne,” 208
Terry, Ian, 357
Tétrault, Philip, 452
“Thanks for the Dance,” 466–67, 468
“That Don’t Make It Junk,” 432
“There Are Some Men,” 473
“There for You,” 442
“There Is a War,” 272, 277, 287
Thomas, Anjani, 423, 429–30, 459–60, 462, 463–69, 501; Blue Alert, 454, 465–69, 514; Dear Heather, 442–43, 444; The Future, 387; Old Ideas, 520; Ten New Songs, 429–30, 432; touring, 340, 344–47, 483; Various Positions, 340, 343–47, 357
Thomas, Dylan, 229, 497
“Thousand Kisses Deep” (poem), 461–62
“Thousand Kisses Deep, A” (song), 384, 413, 435, 461–62, 492
Three Songs for Chorus a Cappella, 473–74
Tiger, Lionel, 67
Timberlake, Justin, 348, 503
Tiny Tim, 172, 189, 190, 457
“Titles,” 462–63
“To a Teacher,” 442
“To I.P.L.,” 54
“Tonight Will Be Fine,” 218, 238, 252
Tower of Song (album), 410–11
“Tower of Song” (song), 358, 359, 360, 371, 382, 457, 470, 484, 507
“Traitor, The,” 318, 321
Trocchi, Alexander, 100–102, 119
Trudeau, Pierre, 115, 244, 397, 433
“True Love Leaves No Traces,” 99, 300, 466
Tunström, Göran, 85
Turner, Steve, 236
“Un Canadien Errant,” 319–20
“Undertow,” 443
Ungar, Leanne, 278, 340, 341, 372, 387–89, 395, 426, 427–28, 430–33, 441, 443, 482
Vaillancourt, Armand, 115, 124, 125, 126, 129
Valenti, Dino, 214
Van Ronk, Dave, 225
Various Positions, 333–49, 356, 361, 370, 388
Vaughan, Stevie Ray, 349–50
Vega, Suzanne, 351, 410
Velikovsky, Immanuel, 252–54
Velvet Underground, 155, 157
Verdal, Suzanne, 124–30
Vicious, Sid, 162, 205
Vick, Richard, 103–4, 104–5, 292
Vidal, Gore, 205
“Villanelle for our Time,” 423, 430
Vincent, Warren, 188
Vizinczey, Stephen, 112
Wainwright, Martha, 438
Wainwright, Rufus, 348, 438, 456–57, 459, 514–15
“Waiting for the Miracle,” 358, 377, 389, 392, 429
Waits, Tom, 285, 376, 505
Walesa, Lech, 345
Walter, Nicolas, 140n
Warhol, Andy, 155, 157–58, 162, 180–83, 189, 392
Warnes, Jennifer, 316, 326, 376, 483; Famous Blue Raincoat, 349–51, 357, 361; The Future, 387; I’m Your Man, 357–58, 360–61; Old Ideas, 521; Recent Songs, 318–19, 322–24; touring, 257, 260, 262, 322–24; Various Positions, 340, 343
Washburn, Donna, 257
Watkins, Mitch, 322–24, 344–45
Weaver, Robert, 99
Webb Sisters, 485–86, 491–94, 500, 519, 520
Weisbrodt, Jörn, 514–15
Weisz, Sharon, 360–62, 367
Westmount High, 10, 20, 21, 24, 32–33, 37, 497
“Who by Fire,” 283, 371
“Why Don’t You Try,” 277, 282
Wieseltier, Leon, 188, 435, 444
Wilburn, Neil, 213
Wildflowers, 151, 179
Williams, Hank, 217, 506
Willner, Hal, 370–71, 383, 437–40, 455–58, 469, 470
Wilson, Milton, 53, 122
“Window, The,” 318, 320, 320n, 325
“Winter Lady,” 174, 186, 191
Wirberg, Agreta, 413
Wisse, Ruth, 38, 53
“Wizard of Is,” 174
Woolf, Virginia, 110
Wright, Edna, 387
Yetnikoff, Walter, 342
York, Willie, 220, 226
You Do Not Have to Love Me, 353n
“You Know Who I Am,” 186, 201–2, 210, 237–38, 268, 499
Young, Neil, 173
“Your Father Has Fallen,” 164
Zach, Natan, 80
Zappa, Frank, 189, 258, 303, 353
Zeffirelli, Franco, 225
Zembaty, Maciej, 344–45
Zemel, Carol, 183
Zemel, Henry, 63–64, 142–43, 183, 211–12, 215, 217, 229–30, 252–54, 270, 506
Zirkel, Steve, 364–67
About the Author
SYLVIE SIMMONS is an award-winning writer and one of the foremost music journalists working today. Born in London, she moved to Los Angeles in the late seventies and started writing about rock music for magazines such as Sounds, Creem, Kerrang! and Q. She is the author of acclaimed fiction and nonfiction books, including the biography Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes and the short-story collection Too Weird for Ziggy. She has lived at various times in England, the United States and France, and she currently lives in San Francisco, California, where she writes for MOJO magazine and plays the ukulele.
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Also by Sylvie Simmons
Fiction
Too Weird for Ziggy
Nonfiction
Neil Young: Reflections in Broken Glass
Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes
Credits
Cover design by Allison Saltzman
Cover photograph: Leonard Cohen in Vancouver, October 20, 1978 © by David Boswell
Copyright
The Permissions section serves as a continuation of this copyright page.
I’M YOUR MAN. Copyright © 2012 by Sylvie Simmons. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
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Epub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062096913
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Permissions
Every effort has been made to contact the appropriate copyright holders. In the event of an inadvertent omission, the publisher would be happy to amend credit lines as necessary in subsequent printings.
Photo of Leonard Cohen backstage at Joni Mitchell concert. Copyright © 1969 by Joel Bernstein.
Photo of Leonard Cohen backstage on the Leonard Cohen 1970 tour. Copyright © 1970 by Joel Bernstein
Excerpts from Let Us Compare Mythologies by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1956 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Excerpts from The Favorite Game by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1964 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of Viking.
Excerpts from The Spice-Box of Earth by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1961 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
Excerpt from Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1966 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of Random House.
Excerpts from Flowers for Hitler by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1964 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
Excerpts from The Energy of Slaves by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1972 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
Excerpts from Death of a Lady’s Man, by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1978 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
“Lover Lover Lover,” written by Leonard Cohen, used by permission of Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
Excerpt from Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1984 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
Excerpts from Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1993 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart.
Excerpts from Book of Longing, by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 2006 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of Ecco, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Excerpts from unpublished works of Leonard Cohen. Copyright © Leonard Cohen, used by permission of the author.
“Comme un Guerrier.” Copyright © Christian Fevret, Les Inrockuptibles, August 21, 1991, reproduced in Throat Culture, 1992, trans. Sophie Miller, used by permission, Throat Culture.
Prophet of the Heart. Copyright © L. S. Dorman and C. L. Rawlins, Omnibus, 1990, used by permission, Omnibus.
“A Conversation with Leonard Cohen.” Copyright © Arthur Kurzweil Jewish Book Club, 1994, by permission of the author.
“My Life Without Leonard Cohen.” Copyright © Ruth Wisse, Commentary, October 1995, used by permission of the author.
So Long, Marianne: Ei Kjaerleikshistorie. Copyright © Kari Hesthamar, Spartacus, 2008, used by permission of the author.
Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland, ed. Sam Solecki, Key Porter Books, 1998, used by permission of the author.
Leonard Cohen. Copyright © Michael Ondaatje, McClelland & Stewart, 1970, used by permission of McClelland and Stewart.
Interview with Leonard Cohen, ZigZag, October 1974. Copyright © Robin Pike, used by permission of the author.
Interview with Leonard Cohen, Soho Weekly News, December 1974. Copyright © Danny Fields, used by permission of the author.
Leonard Cohen: Tower of Song. Copyright © Kevin Howlett, BBC Radio One, August 7, 1994, by permission of producer/interviewer Kevin Howlett.
Songwriters on Songwriting. Copyright © Paul Zollo, 1992, revised edition, Da Capo, 2003, used by permission of the author.
John Hammond and Irving Townsend, On Record, Ridge Press/Penguin US & UK, 1981, reprinted courtesy of the Estate of John Hammond.
Interviews with Leonard Cohen, Melody Maker, 1975 and LA Phonograph. Copyright © Harvey Kubernik, 1977, used by permission of author.
Bird on a Wire. Copyright © Tony Palmer, 1974/2011, used by permission of filmmaker
Leonard Cohen Under Review 1934–1977. Copyright © Chrome Dreams, used by permission of Chrome Dreams.
Interview with Leonard Cohen, High Times, February 1980. Copyright © Larry “Ratso” Sloman, used by permission of the author.
Conversation in Montreal 1984. Copyright © Robert Sward, used by permission of the author.
Famous Last Words from Leonard Cohen. Copyright © Paul Saltzman, 1972, used by permission of the author.
Yakety Yak. Copyright © Scott Cohen, Simon & Schuster, 1994. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster.
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. Copyright © Howard Sounes, Grove, 2001. Reprinted by Permission of Grove/Atlantic.
Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen. Copyright © Ira B. Nadel, Bloomsbury, 1996, Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury US, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing.
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Footnotes
* The same report described Leonard’s “personal and hygiene habits” as “neat and clean. He is careful about his clothes and always appears well dressed.” It also made note of his interest and abilities in sailing—“one of the best skippers in the unit”—and his “fine sense of humor.”
* Another song Leonard learned for the first time at Camp Sunshine was “The Partisan,” which would be the first song he recorded that was not his own.
* Tinkie was still alive at this time; he would expire during his sixteenth year after wandering off alone in a snowstorm.
* Curiously, on the same page as Leonard’s “Folk Song” was a line drawing, not by Leonard, of a bird on a wire.
* The contents of the drawer, as described by Leonard in T
he Favorite Game, also included “candle-butts from years of Sabbath evenings,” “brass keys to locks which have been changed,” “toothpicks they never used” and a “broken pair of scissors.”
* “The Gift” was later published in The Spice-Box of Earth.
* The Allan would later gain notoriety for its participation in Project MK-ULTRA, a covert CIA research program into mind control from 1957 to 1964, using drugs, abuse and sensory deprivation.
* So Long, Marianne: Ei Kjaerleikshistorie by Kari Hesthamar.
* Rachman also made the newspapers as the owner of the house that served as the place of business of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies, the call girls who almost brought down the British government in 1963 in the Profumo Affair.
* Bacal is in the process of writing a memoir of this period, A Different Story.
* Leonard was responsible for the title, according to Aviva Layton. “George said, ‘I just don’t know what to call it.’ Leonard said, ‘What’s it about?’ He said, ‘My brother Jack,’ Leonard said, ‘There you are.’ ”
* In 1968 Pomerance released her experimental debut album titled You Used to Think, which contained her song “To Leonard from Hospital.” She went on to become a documentary filmmaker.
* Showalter is known in Leonard Cohen circles as the webmaster of 1heckofaguy.com.
* The critic, Nicolas Walter, was clearly no fan of Leonard’s music: “The impact on a young student of a song like ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’ must be overwhelming,” he wrote, “but in fact the song is merely an abstraction of all currently fashionable moods of doom, and in any case, overwhelming art is the kind you grow out of.”
* “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was recorded with David Crosby and Graham Nash in 1969.
* Nico’s version was released posthumously on the compilation album Le cinéma de Serge Gainsbourg (2001).
I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen Page 59