Details
Track Listing
DISC 1:
1. Suzanne
2. Stranger Song, The
3. Sisters of Mercy
4. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye
5. So Long, Marianne
6. Bird on a Wire
7. Partisan, The
8. Famous Blue Raincoat
9. Chelsea Hotel # 2
10. Take This Longing
11. Who by Fire
12. Guests, The
13. Hallelujah
14. If It Be Your Will
15. Night Comes On
16. I'm Your Man
17. Everybody Knows
18. Tower of Song
DISC 2:
1. Ain't No Cure For Love
2. Take This Waltz
3. First We Take Manhattan
4. Dance Me to the End of Love - (live)
5. Future, The
6. Democracy
7. Waiting For the Miricle
8. Closing Time
9. Anthem
10. In My Secret Life
11. Alexandra Leaving
12. Thousand Kisses Deep, A
13. Love Itself
| Details | | Distributor: | Sony Music Distribution ( | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Personnel includes: Leonard Cohen (vocals).
Producers include: John Simon, Bob Johnston, John Lissauer, Leonard Cohen, Henry Lewy.
Compilation producers: Leanne Ungar, Bruce Dickinson.
Recorded between 1967 & 2001. Includes liner notes by Pico Iyer.
THE ESSENTIAL LEONARD COHEN manages the considerable task of documenting the career of a man many consider one of the finest songwriters in the English language. Easily on par with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon in terms of sheer poetic power, Canadian troubadour Cohen started out, appropriately enough, as a prose poet before beginning a recording career in the late 1960s. His early albums, amply represented here, found him accompanied chiefly by his own nylon-string guitar, delivering dark, but often romantic, reveries atop folk-based song structures.
By the late '70s, Cohen's lyrics and musical settings had both grown more expansive, as is made plain here by judiciously chosen tracks from that period. In the late '80s, at an age when many of his contemporaries had long since retired, Cohen experienced a rebirth via the sardonic songs and spare, electronics-laced backing of I'M YOUR MAN, which gets the most space on this collection. By remaining a man apart from every era he moved through, whether the flower-power hippie days or the earnest '70s singer/songwriter boom, Cohen maintained both his vision and his credibility, making THE ESSENTIAL LEONARD COHEN indispensable to anyone interested in serious 20th-century songwriting.
Industry Reviews
5 stars out of 5 - ...This is the kind of collection that converts non-believers...
Uncut (12/01/2002)
4 stars out of 5 - ...This is a genteel, 2CD stroll through the bardic Canadian's romance-pitted past. There are riches galore...
Q (01/01/2003)
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