
For a few months
in 1967 and 1968, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen had a fling, the consequences
of which continued to echo in their work. Introduced backstage at Judy Collins' songwriter's workshop at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival by Collins herself, Cohen and Mitchell were officially an
item by the time the two of them co-hosted a workshop at the Mariposa Folk
Festival. Their romance ignited, flared, and
exhausted itself within months.
Joni said of Suzanne, "I'd met him and I went, 'I love that song. What a great song.' Really. "Suzanne" was one of the greatest songs I ever heard. So I was proud to meet an artist. He made me feel humble, because I looked at that song and I went, 'Woah. All my songs seem so naive by comparison.' It raised the standard of what I wanted to write."
Cohen, who was better known as a poet and novelist than as a musician, was 33 when
they met; Mitchell was nine years his junior. Conveniently,
Cohen was often in New York where he would spend time with Mitchell, who was
living at the Earl Hotel in the Village, and Mitchell was routinely playing
dates in Montreal, where Cohen lived. Cohen also spent a month at Mitchell’s
Laurel Canyon home when he was recruited by Hollywood in 1968 to score a movie
based on "Suzanne." (The movie project failed to materialize.) Joni’s "Rainy Night House" is her farewell account of that liaison. "I went one time to his
home and I fell asleep in his old room and he sat up and watched me sleep. He
sat up all the night and he watched me to see who in the world I could be."
I
am from the Sunday school
I sing soprano in the upstairs choir
You are a holy man
On the FM radio
I sat up all the night and watched thee
To see, who in the world you might be
I sing soprano in the upstairs choir
You are a holy man
On the FM radio
I sat up all the night and watched thee
To see, who in the world you might be
Mitchell points
out, "There’s some poetic liberty
with those two lines; actually it's "You sat up all night and watched me to see
who in the world …" I turned it around. Leonard was in a lot of pain. Hungry
ghosts is what it's called in Buddhism. I am even lower. Five steps down." Funny how we tend to associate lyrics in our own lives, hardly thinking about how songs relate to the lives of the songwriter. T.S. Eliot would love our ability to dismiss the poet, but I find so much intrigue in the understory. Suzanne, btw, is Suzanne Verdal (not his wife, Suzanne Elrod - many make this error), with whom Cohen had a friendship, though not an intimate one, long before Joni. Just a snippet of her story reveals the literal nature of Cohen's lyrics: "The St. Lawrence River held a particular poetry and beauty to me and I decided to live there with [my] daughter, Julie. Leonard heard about this place I was living, with crooked floors and a poetic view of the river, and he came to visit me many times. We had tea together many times and mandarin oranges." And as we know, they came all the way from China.
As a general rule, Leonard
Cohen is about as cool as cool can be. Bob Dylan dedicates songs to him and
wrote "I'm not there" in awestruck emulation of the man. Joni still talks like he's a "holy man." Can you
imagine, the Norton Anthology says, "Suzanne" is one of the few songs
which works as well as a song as it does as poetry. We've discussed rock lyrics
as poetry in the past and that's a cool accolade. Still, it late; best to let
those lyrics speak for themselves:
Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
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.
Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.