Reducing Leonard Cohen’s entire musical catalog to just 20 songs is a challenging task, acknowledging that numerous deserving tracks inevitably miss the cut. Opening the list at number 20 is First We Take Manhattan released in 1988. The synth-heavy production on I’m Your Man has always faced division, with longtime collaborator Anjani Thomas expressing reservations, yet on this opening track, the Pet Shop Boys-style arrangement effectively clashes with Cohen’s gritty vocals to heighten the brooding atmosphere. Amplifying First We Take Manhattan’s shiver-inducing sense of brooding menace, the Pet Shop Boys-ish arrangement chafes against Cohen’s growling vocal. But one with much to commend it, it’s an outlier in Cohen’s catalogue. But in truth, it’s just one among a plethora of memorable lines in the song’s gospel-infused paean to hope and human imperfection, a song he later suggested represented “everything my whole work and life had gathered aro. Reducing Leonard Cohen’s oeuvre to 20 songs is a thankless task: the compiler is abundantly aware that umpteen deserving songs have been neglected.
Ranking 19th is Going Home from 2011. Following a seven-year break and financial difficulties after Dear Heather in 2004, Old Ideas began with this witty track where Cohen’s muse dismissively refers to him as a lazy bastard in a suit. Memories follows at number 18 from his 1977 album Death of a Ladies’ Man, a record Cohen famously called a catastrophe due to erratic sessions with Phil Spector, though Cohen always maintained a soft spot for this rock-influenced track. Seven years – and a personal financial crisis – after 2004’s half-hearted Dear Heather, Cohen returned to the studio with his powers freshly marshalled. Which perhaps reflected more on its drug- and booze-soaked recording with dangerously erratic producer Phil Spector than the finished album, cohen famously called his 1977 LP Death of a Ladies’ Man “a catastrophe”. Certainly, he maintained an understandable fondness for the rock’n’roll-influenced Memories, often performing it live.
Almost Like the Blues takes the 17th spot from 2014’s Popular Problems, released on his 80th birthday, addressing human cruelty alongside a jab at Richard Dawkins. At 16, A Thousand Kisses Deep from 2001’s Ten New Songs offers an exquisite reflection on time, recorded primarily in Sharon Robinson’s garage after Cohen’s Buddhist studies. The title track of Death of a Ladies’ Man lands at number 15, where Spector’s dense production style uniquely complements the arrangement rather than overpowering it. Killing and war, but “all my bad reviews” – and staring down his own mortality, replete with a jab at Richard Dawkins, almost Like the Blues found him reflecting sorrowfully on man’s inhumanity to man – not merely torture. Moreover, the weight of Spector’s arrangement, the way it causes the tempo to drag, seems to complement rather than suffocate its mood. Not by begging on his knees,” he notes in a moment of clarity, then carries on regardless, its emotional tone shifts from lustful to desperate to hopeless: “A man never got a woman back.
At number 14 is You Want It Darker from 2016, released weeks before his death, featuring the poignant refrain that he was ready, my Lord, to examine complex themes of faith. Other artists have made albums that looked imminent death in the face – Warren Zevon’s The Wind, Queen’s Innuendo – but You Want It Darker, released less than three weeks before the end of Cohen’s life, may be the most p.
Chelsea Hotel #2 occupies the 13th spot from 1974, recalling a brief encounter with Janis Joplin that serves as a eulogy for a lost era of optimism.
Everybody Knows at number 12 brings dark humor to late-80s societal despair, while Avalanche at number 11 stands as the claustrophobic core of Songs of Love and Hate, praised by Nick Cave as a pillar of his artistic world. Rock stars of a certain vintage were wont to write despairing state-of-the-world addresses in the late 80s – Lou Reed’s New York is full of them – but Everybody Knows is a cut above, its relentlessly bleak worldview leav. A relentless, shimmering guitar figure, a confusing but compelling tumble of imagery, with his voice at its most poisonous, avalanche is its claustrophobic heart. The latter are filled with intimations of darkness; it’s never entirely clear that love will overcome them.
Dance Me to the End of Love at number 10 draws eerie inspiration from concentration camp orchestras during forced labor. The Future from 1992 captures apocalyptic reflections on sociopolitical turmoil at number 9, matching Los Angeles riots with prophetic soft-rock backing. Tower of Song at number 8 showcases Cohen’s mordant humor regarding his painful writing process, while Anthem at number 7 houses his most famous lyric about the crack in everything through which light enters. Inspired by the story of the Lagerkapellen – concentration camp orchestras whose music accompanied forced labour and executions – there’s something eerie about Dance Me to the End of Love’s klezmer-inspired melody and lyrical pleas for lifelong fealty. “I’ve seen the future, baby, and it’s murder”: Cohen’s apocalyptic response to the sociopolitical upheavals of the early 90s – most obviously the Los Angeles riots – depicted a world in which “attitudes are all extremist and they’re all defensive”. It sounds grimly prophetic, its upbeat soft-rock backing only serving to amplify the unease, thirty-four years on. Cohen found writing a trying experience – lurid stories abound of him beating his head against the floor while working on Hallelujah. Mordantly funny Tower of Song, which has often struck a chord with other artists, covered by everyone from Phoebe Bridgers to Tom Jones to the Jesus and Mary Chain, he poured it all into the thrillingly vivid.
I’m Your Man from 1988 sits at number 6, pairing cheesy synth backing with desperate explorations of romantic abasement. Hallelujah from 1984 takes the 5th spot, tracing an unlikely journey from rejection by a US label to international ubiquity through John Cale’s cover. So Long, Marianne at number 1968 and Bird on the Wire from 1969 occupy the 4th and 3rd positions respectively, the latter coaxed out of a depressed Cohen by Marianne Ihlen and deeply cherished by Kris Kristofferson.
Rounding out the top positions, Suzanne from 1968 takes second place as an instant standard covered by numerous legends including Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin. Finally, Famous Blue Raincoat claims the number one spot from 1971, capping off an extraordinary songwriting legacy.
