leonard cohen - best of - bangor, maine 1986

despite my general contempt for compilation albums, i'm including the best of leonard cohen among my favorites for two reasons: the first being that cohen's catalog holds too many great records for me to pick just one (although i might lean towards new skin for the old ceremony.) the second reason is that this record indisputably had a tremendous impact at a pivotal point very early in my life. i still play a lot of leonard cohen, and i try to expose as many other people to him as i can. the songs are romantic, sexy and poetic, and musically interesting--i've used them to try to impress women and other musicians alike. but growing up with this record it had a completely different meaning. my earliest memory of hearing this was riding in our mercury sable station wagon, shortly after my father died. i was probably four or five years old. most of the songs sounded haunting and mournful, the lyrics dealing with things i couldn't understand, except maybe loss. while cohen's lusty sexuality went over my head, i definitely recognized something inherently religious in his words. we grew up catholic--i remember going to church every sunday, staring up at the elaborately painted ceiling at pictures of sheep and angels, wondering why everybody seemed so goddamn sad. even with cohen standing on the cover in a sepia-colored photograph, he reminded me of a catholic priest dressed in black. the record is so fraught with biblical-sounding language that to me it was a completely holy object. i didn't know that he was singing about sex and love affairs in "suzanne" and "hey, that's no way to say goodbye," getting head from janis joplin in "chelsea hotel #2," or what an orgy was in "last year's man." many years later after my own heartaches and triumphs these added a whole new dimension to the record, but as a child they had no bearing on my mind. this song was about jesus, that song was about death, this song was about war, that song was about the bible. and of course "who by fire" was some kind of prayer. my surroundings at the time definitely added to my impression of the album as being dark and depressing. i have memories of being alone in a dark room trying to wrap my head around what it meant to be dead, and of my mother and brother and i all crying for no apparent reasons. and the songs would always come to me as kind of a soundtrack in my mind, and even if they didn't answer my questions they seemed to be a comfort. one line that always stuck with me is from "sisters of mercy," "if your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn/they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem." another is from "last year's" man, "and when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil/that i had to draw aside to see the serpent eat its tail." but of course my favorite song on the record had to be "so long, marianne." it seemed like a sad song, but it was also one of the more upbeat ones. again, i didn't know what the context was, but cohen was singing "so long, marianne"--he was losing somebody--but then he was reassuring us with "it's time we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again."
i still remember riding around in the car with my mother singing along and thinking that this song was somehow about grieving for my father, and to us it was, and that's how i continue to think about it.