Male Leonard Cohen fan checking in. I first ran across him in the aforementioned Pump Up the Volume and really dug his voice. An old girlfriend had some of his early albums and I listened to those quite a bit. Don’t have any of his stuff now, but I might just see if I can’t pick up some in the near future.
Yeah, but I’d have to take off Dick’s Picks Volume 21. Right now Jerry Garcia’s singing “Don’t Ease Me In.”
*I was standing on the corner
Talking to Miss Brown
When I turned around, sweet mama,
She was way cross town.
I’m standing on the corner
With a dollar in my hand
I’m looking for a woman, sweet mama,
Ain’t got no man.
The girl I love
She’s sweet and true
You know the dress she wears, sweet mama,
It’s big and blue.
She brings me coffee
You know she brings me tea
She brings me bout every damn thing
But the jailhouse key.
Don’t ease don’t ease
Dontcha ease me in
I been all night long comin’ home
Don’t ease me in.*
…now, THAT’S profound!
I am a chick, but I learned about Leonard Cohen from my first boyfriend in high school. Later, I swiped some of his LC tapes as a sort of breakup trophy. 
Right here on my desk I have his live album, “Field Commander Cohen, Tour of 1979.”
Love “Hallelujah,” which BTW, they used last night on “Scrubs,” except I don’t have the album it first appeared on? Anyone? My other favorites are “Take This Waltz” (“In Vienna there’s 10 pretty women…”) and “Suzanne” and “Hey That’s no Way to say Goodbye” and “First We Take Manhattan.”
I bet we can all agree that the WORST Cohen song is easily “Jazz Police.” Oh, the cheesy lyrics. Oh, the Casiotone synth background. Oh, the agony.
Has anyone watched the cult British comedy “The Young Ones?” In one of the episodes a character says: “Why do I even speak? No one listens to me anyway. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen album.”
28 year old male Leonard Cohen fan checking in. I originally got started on Cohen because I’m a big Billy Joel fan, and he covered Light As the Breeze on “Tower of Song.” Since then, I’ve been hooked. I haven’t picked up a lot of his stuff, but I’m working on it.
Grown men calling themselves “boys”?! Ugh. shiver
(BTW, don’t call yourselves “girls” either… Please?)
Not only am I a male fan of Cohen’s, but I can’t even conceive that women would like his stuff. It seems to me that it’s all written from a very male point of view. (Maybe that’s just 'cuz I’m thinking of Suzanne.) My favorite Cohen-scripted song is The Story of Isaac. I’ve never actually heard his version, but Suzanne Vega’s is on a Cohen tribute album I have, and it’s sublime.
–Cliffy
Regretably, I haven’t seen the Young Ones since their brief stint on TV a few years ago. This reminds me, however, of a another LC reference on British TV. In an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, Edina is attending a fashion awards banquet. Due to give a speech, she gets up in frustration and starts quoting “Bird on a Wire.”
I’m a female LC fan. When I was about 11, I heard Ian McColloch’s (I’m butchering that spelling) cover of “Lover, Lover, Lover.” I loved it, but didn’t realize it was a cover. I was knowingly introduced to LC with REM’s cover of “First We Take Manhattan.”
I turned my ex-boyfriend onto LC with the *I’m Your Fan[i/] cover CD. I gave him one LC’s CDs, then for his latest birthday his own copy of IYF. He then told he had contemplated stealing mine on several occasions.
I’m gonna put my big hat on and tell you to Do yourself a favour, Cliffy (Oz readers should get the reference), and pick up Lennie’s ‘Live Songs’ CD. It used to be rare, and only on import from Japan, until a couple of years ago it was released as a low/mid-price CD. It has some amazing moments, and ‘Story of Isaac’ is one of the best.
Hello Again, I actually think The Jazz Police is a funny song, and I always use the phrase to people who try to tell me how to act in a particular situation where they really don’t have any authority (such as yobs at the front of a rock and roll show telling me that I’m not dancing hard enough, and I should go to the back).
And, Ike, the record you have is a good one, but it’s probably the one out of the first half dozen I’d say is hardest to get into. Try to find a friend with his first record and give that a listen.
Well it was my SO (definatly a boy) who got me into Leonard Cohen. Althought ever since I got really into him he’s retreated to the likes of Monster Magnet and the Stooges (wait a minute. Wasn’t it me who got him into the Stooges?)
Cliffy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
But what I want to know is why does no one heree have an opinion about “Ten New Songs”? I’d have one but I haven’t heard it yet.
Has no one here heard it yet?!?
I shan’t.
Welcome aboard. What brought you here? Registering in order to post on a Leonard Cohen thread is a good sign, even if your intent was to abuse us <sniff> for our comfort with being referred to in a denigrating manner. 
ThisYearsGirl, I just wanted to say that I completely understand your OP. Until reading some of this, I thought Leonard Cohen was a girl thing. I pretty much worship him (shrine and everything), but I always got ridiculed by my ex for it. Which didn’t make sense to me because so many of his songs are intimately concerned with the male psyche.
From reading these posts, I guess I’ve just been hanging out with the wrong men…
Male here.
I’m not a HUGE LC fan, but I like him.
The person who introduced me to him, and the only real fanatic I know, is male, too.
Are we really talking about Leonard Cohen? The same Leonard Cohen? The Rod McKuen of Despair?
Since we’re talking about my favorite Beautiful Loser, I’ll risk a slight hijack and ask a question. I’ve never heard Cohen perform the song “Priests,” which he apparently wrote. I’ve only heard it on an old Richie Havens album I used to have, “1983” (which I would love to buy again, if I could find it on CD).
Does anyone know the song? Did Cohen ever record it? Thanks.
I like Leonard, but I’ve not heard a lot of music.
XY genotype, check.
Likes Leonard Cohen, check.
Thinks Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Halleleujah” is one damn fine cover version, and that it’s a damn shame he died so early, doublecheck.
Male here. Like Leonard Cohen, though that’s based off a sampling of the albums “The Future” and “I’m Your Man”. Both have some nice apocalyptic songs that brought me in and gave me a chance to appreciate the rest of the songs on the albums. My friend got into him the same way.
True, true… though my friend and I can still make each other crack up by a well timed “Jazzer, drop your axe; it’s jazz police!”
Male, 52 year-old, huge Leonard Cohen fan checking in.
I was introduced to Lenord Cohen when I was going to the University of Texas in the late sixties. There was a class I would sit in on from time to time called “English and the Electronic Media” taught by this over-the-top hip professor named Kruppa, I think. I always felt that the class was really an excuse for him to talk about the lyrics in the music of the day. One day he was discussing Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman and comparing their two versions of Suzanne.
There is a long story here which ends up with Cohen coming to one of Kruppa’s classes, but I’ll save that for another time.
His productions have always seemed to me to be in need of some added life. Phil Specter seemed to think the same way and went about producing a Cohen album called “The Death of a Lady’s Man” which utilized Specter’s famous “wall of sound”. It was a monumental disaster. In general I think Cohen’s music benefits from limited production.
I’m a boy, and being a Montrealer I am required to love Leonard Cohen.
Another man for Cohen. “…Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet” is strangely one of my favorite lyrics.
For some reason, I’ve never bought any of his music. I guess I’m going to the record store tomorrow.