Tag Archives: Suzanne

Video: Earliest Recording Of Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne – The Stormy Clovers 1966

Leonard Cohen and The Stormy Clovers

 In The Beginning Were The Stormy Clovers
ie, The Beginning Of Leonard Cohen’s Songwriting Career

A year before Leonard Cohen or Judy Collins performed his music on stage, the Stormy Clovers were playing Cohen’s songs at festivals and in clubs, coffee houses, and campuses in Toronto, Montreal, and other Canadian cities and towns (see Introducing The Stormy Clovers – And Their Songwriter, Leonard Cohen).

This relationship between the band and Leonard Cohen was not completely unique. The Stormy Clovers were a popular group, playing their own material and songs given them, for example, by Gordon Lightfoot and Ian Tyson as well as those authored by Cohen. Because, however, they were the first to play Leonard Cohen’s songs professionally, their performances do hold special significance.

Because I suspect most readers share my own curiosity about the experience of working with Leonard Cohen during that  seminal period, I have filched a few lines from the narrative by band member David Fougere (aka DD Fraser) that will be published here beginning next week:

The first time I heard ‘Suzanne’ we were at Leonard and Marianne’s apartment on Aylmer Street in Montreal. … Leonard sang:

Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river
You can hear the boats go by…..

We were spellbound. When the song came to an end the room was utterly silent.

The Video & The Lyrics

This video comprises a 1966 audio recording of the Stormy Clovers performing Suzanne by Leonard Cohen supplemented with photos of the band, Cohen, and the Montreal waterfront.

The roster of the Stormy Clovers, at the time of this performance, follows:  Susan Jains – vocals; Ray Perdue – guitar;  DD Fraser – bass; and Pat Patterson – drums.

The lyrics of the version of Suzanne sung by the Stormy Clovers varies from the words Cohen used when he recorded Suzanne on his first album, Songs Of Leonard Cohen.1 While there are other minor variations, the most obvious difference is Suzanne’s 16-line second verse, beginning with  “And Jesus was a sailor,” which is part of the version on the Songs Of Leonard Cohen (and all later iterations) but which is absent in this Stormy Clovers recording. 2

Suzanne – Performed by Stormy Clovers (1966); Written by Leonard Cohen

Credit Due Department: Both photos atop this post are from Leonard Cohen at the Village by Diane Boyle, The Chevron V7, N28, March 10, 1967. As noted in the video, it is impractical to credit individual images used in its composition, but the majority of the photos of the band were found on the Stormy Clovers Facebook Page, which is also a rich source of information and short clips of other songs performed by the group.  Finally, Heck Of A Guy extends special thank-yous to Sally Hunter who was instrumental in finding shots of the Montreal waterfront for use in the video and Adrian du Plessis, who functions as Allison Crowe’s personable manager and who first shared information about the Stormy Clovers with me that led to this video and the associated posts.

The Heck Of A Guy Stormy Clovers Page

All material relating to the Stormy Clovers on this site can be accessed through Heck Of A Guy – Stormy Clovers.

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  1. The lyrics of Suzanne as performed on Songs Of Leonard Cohen follow:

    Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
    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 harbour
    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. []

  2. Re the other differences in the two versions, Cohen often changes the words and lines of his songs.  Compare, for example, the lyrics of Suzanne as performed on the  Songs Of Leonard Cohen album with the lyrics in these videos: Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen performing Suzanne 1976 and Leonard Cohen performing Suzanne at The Isle of Wight 1970 []

Revisiting A 1998 Tribute To Leonard Cohen

Billboard’s 30th Anniversary Tribute To Leonard Cohen – November 28, 1998

The November 28, 1998 issue of Billboard contains a 14 page celebration of Leonard Cohen.  That section was described in a post at LeonardCohenFiles:

The tribute is a 14 page appendix in the middle of the magazine. A recent interview with Leonard written by with Susan Nunziata was also posted on Billboard’s own website, but there is more in the magazine – we can read comments from his co-workers and friends, like Phil Spector, Jennifer Warnes, and Steve Lindsey. Dylan Siegler writes about Leonard’s career. There are numerous stylish advertisements showing great photos of Leonard and his family. For instance the staff at Stranger Management, his promoters, record companies, financial advisors, music publisher, and TV/radio channels greet him. A touching ad is on page LC-12: photos from Leonard’s family album are presented with the text “With love from your family; Suzanne, Lorca, Adam and Esther”.

The Nunziata interview is studded with gems, including  Cohen’s acknowledgment of  his debt to Jennifer Warnes:

Jennifer Warnes practically revived me from the dead in America by putting out Famous Blue Raincoat.… She’s been an invaluable help in my life.

And there is also a discussion of Cohen’s project with Phil Spector:

Of note was Cohen’s collaboration with Phil Spector on the album “Death of a Ladies’ Man”. The almost unimaginable combination of Spector and Cohen has been well documented. Spector’s obsession with guns, his heavy drinking, his tendency to surround himself with menacing henchmen, and his penchant to threaten musicians. The now infamous stories of Spector holding a gun to Cohen’s neck as a sign of his unswerving affection and his obsessive possessiveness of the master tapes, to the extent that Cohen was prevented from hearing the mixes before the album was released, are now legendary. The sound and style of Ladies’ Man were in such contrast to Cohen’s previous work that it came as a great disappointment to him.

However, with the intervention of time, Cohen has mellowed and warmed toward the album and has now developed a great affection for it, even to the extent that he has entertained the possibility of working with Spector again. Spector, for his part, expressed great admiration for Cohen, and warmly cherished the honor of working with Cohen and of sharing in the writing and production of “Death of a Ladies’ Man”. [emphasis mine]

The Cohen Cover Photo

The intriguing qualities of the interview notwithstanding, I am more taken with the ads placed in the Cohen tribute section by his business associates and family (seen in the following sections) and the spectacularly cluttered cover (seen atop this post).

While I understand the significance of the Cohen-authored books and albums comprising the border of the cover and the fact that no periodical is likely to sacrifice its own logo to highlight a cover photo, I am convinced the simple image of Leonard Cohen, freed of the clunky icons surrounding the image’s perimeter, is far more striking. Click on images for best viewing.

The Leonard Cohen Family Ad

Clearly the highlight of the ads is the touching collection of family photos with the inscription

With love from your family;
Suzanne, Lorca, Adam and Esther

Ad From Moses Znaimer

Moses Znaimer was the head of several Canadian specialty channels, including  Much Music, MusiquePlus, MusiMAX, and MuchmoreMusic. His ad places Cohen on a background filled with images of music, Hebrew script, a rose, a statue emblematic of Eastern thought, and a list of Cohen’s roles: Poet, Singer, Songwriter, Rabbinical Student, Buddhist Adept, and Lover Of Women.

Ad From European Promoters

I first award this ad the prize for Funniest Tribute Ad because of its legend,

First we take Manhattan
Then we take a break

… and the accompanying pseudo-Polaroid of Cohen collapsed on the floor.

It also wins the award for Most Sincere Tribute Ad because of the openly self-serving signature lines:

Dear Leonard,
We can’t wait to see you back on the road.
Love, Fleming, Steen, & your European promoters.

Ad From Greenberg & Associates Financial Advisors

Things change. In 2005, Cohen and his legal team would accuse Greenberg of failing to warn Cohen about his dangerous financial situation. 1

Ad From Stranger Music

Some things really change. The text reads,

“Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free”

Dearest Leonard,
With great love and affection,
from Kelley [Lynch], Joan [Lynch], Jack [Lynch], and all your friends at Stranger Management, and from Steve Lindsey [arranger & producer]

The ad shows Leonard Cohen playing  at Statale Università, Milan, Italy (probably in 1974)2

 

Billboard's 30th Anniversary Tribute To Leonard Cohen – November 28, 1998
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  1. Leonard Cohen’s Troubles May Be a Theme Come True By Marc Weingarten.  New York Times October 6, 2005. []
  2. LeonardCohenFiiles []

How Judy Collins Helped Leonard Cohen Start His Singer-Songwriter Career

Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen At Cohen's Induction Into Songwriters Hall Of Fame

Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins On His Singing Debut &”Suzanne”

Judy Collins – Interviewed By Bill Moyers About Leonard Cohen, “Suzanne”

Judy Collins praises Cohen’s lyricism and outlines the religious inflections of his work.  She also sings “Suzanne.”

Video from betahifi

Leonard Cohen Interviewed About Judy Collins and “Suzanne”

In this video Cohen reports on the reason for his “mad decision” to “rectify [his] economic situation” by  shifting from writing poems and novels to writing and singing songs, his first meeting with Judy Collins, and his anxiety about being a singer rather than focusing exclusively on songwriting:

I remember saying to my lawyer who was accompanying me there [NYC]. In a state of panic, I said ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here; I can’t sing,’ and he said, ‘None of you guys can sing. When I want to hear singers, I go the Metropolitan Opera.’

And I think that’s more or less the position I had anyway. I never thought we were singers. I certainly never had any musical standards to tyrannize me. I thought it was something to do with the truth, that if you told your story, that’s what the song was about.

The video also includes the account by Judy Collins on Cohen’s near-catastrophic public singing debut at New York’s Town Hall and Cohen singing “Suzanne.”

Video from betahifi

Bonus: Leonard Cohen And Judy Collins Sing “Suzanne”

Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen – “Suzanne” 1976

Video from betahifi

Geoffrey Oreyama's "Suzanne" Is On Leonard Cohen's Jukebox

lcjukebox

Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox: In interviews through the years, Leonard Cohen has mentioned a handful of specific songs he favors. Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox is a Heck Of A Guy feature playing those tunes for your edification and entertainment.

Suzanne Cover Gives Leonard Cohen A Good Feeling

This excerpt from Porridge? Lozenge? Syringe? by Adrian Deevoy (The Q Magazine, 1991), describes a conversation taking place between the author and Cohen while music from the tribute album, I’m Your Fan,  plays in the background:

As That Petrol Emotion launch into Stories Of The Street, he [Leonard Cohen]  finally cracks. “Hey, we’re really going to have to take this down. It’s such an exquisite distraction.” He turns the volume right down. “We’ll try it as background music, although my guess is that it’ll make it more tantalising.” All goes swimmingly until the opening phrases of Suzanne stop Cohen in his tracks. “Who’s singing this?” he asks.

It is Geoffrey Oreyama, who is signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. Cohen squints toward the hi-fi.

“When you hear a guy singing a song like this, which you wrote before he was born, it gives you a good feeling.” He is genuinely choked with emotion. He takes a deep breath. “This isn’t a casual moment for me.”

Geoffrey Oreyama

Oreyama is an Ugandan musician who sings in Swahili and Acholi as well as French and English.

The Video

The audio track of this video is, indeed, Geoffrey Oreyama’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” from the I’m Your Fan album. The video, however, consists of scenes from Final Fantasy.1 I have no information about and am unwilling to even speculate on Leonard Cohen’s assessment of Final Fantasy.


fedoradivider

Other Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox Posts

All posts featured in the Heck Of A Guy Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox series can be found at the end of the Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox Page.

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  1. Wikipedia provides this description of Final Fantasy: Final Fantasy​ is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Squaresoft). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy console role-playing games (RPGs), but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise. The series began in 1987 as an eponymous video game developed to save Square from bankruptcy; the game was a success and spawned sequels. The video game series has since branched into other genres such as tactical role-playing, massively multiplayer online role-playing, and racing. Although most Final Fantasy installments are independent stories with various different settings and main characters, they feature common elements that define the franchise. Such recurring elements include plot themes, character names, and game mechanics. Plots center on a group of heroes battling a great evil while exploring the characters’ internal struggles and relationships. Character names are often derived from the history, languages, and mythologies of cultures worldwide. The series has been commercially and critically successful; it is Square Enix’s best selling video game franchise, with more than 85 million units sold, and one of the best-selling video game franchises. Second to Final Fantasy among Square Enix franchises is Dragon Quest. It was awarded a star on the Walk of Game in 2006, and holds seven Guinness World Records in the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2008. The series is well known for its innovation, visuals, and music, such as the inclusion of full motion videos, photo-realistic character models, and orchestrated music by Nobuo Uematsu. Final Fantasy has been a driving force in the video game industry. The video game series has affected Square’s business practices and its relationships with other video game developers. It has also introduced many features now common in console RPGs and has been credited with helping to popularize RPGs in markets outside Japan. []

"Thanks For All The Lights, Friends" – Leonard Cohen, San Jose Concert November 13, 2009

Fans Greet “Suzanne” With Green Lights

When Leonard Cohen broke into “Suzanne,” fans from LeonardCohenForum broke out green glow sticks in celebration and were rewarded for their efforts by Cohen voicing his appreciation from the stage (at 1:27):1

Thanks for all the lights, friends

Leonard Cohen – Suzanne (San Jose, 11/13/2009)

Video from arlenedick15

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  1. The waving lights response was organized by mutti of LeonardCohenForum. []

Our Lady Of The Harbour – Setting For Leonard Cohen’s "Suzanne"

The Sun Pours Down Like Honey1

Sally Hunter writes,

I was sorting though my camera data cards today, as I am accompanying 160 Grade 7′s to Quebec City tomorrow, and wanted to make sure I had lots of memory. I found these pictures taken last year in Montreal. I did two trips last year, one to Quebec City and the other to Montreal and Quebec City. These trips are lots of noise and hustle and bustle. On my last day in Montreal, I had a little bit of time to myself before we once again rallied the troops. I stole away for some peace and quiet to Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, better known to you as the Church where “… the sun pours down like honey, On our lady of the harbour…” The Lady of the Harbour faces the St. Lawrence River, and blesses the men in the boats who travel along the river. I am enclosing a shot of the interior of the Church. It is a most remarkable colour of blue and small ships hang from the ceiling.

The photos are among the best that I’ve seen of  The Lady of the Harbour, especially in their display of detail. (Note, for example, the starry halo over her head.) Click on images to enlarge

lofh-2900

I hadn’t noticed the angels, one of Cohen’s favorite allusions, that are prominent around the pedestal in the photo below.

ladyofharbourmon1900

And, until Sally called it to my attention with this superb photo, I was completely unaware of the gorgeous interior of the church.

bon-secour900

Heck Of A Guy appreciates not only the quality of these outstanding photos and Sally’s generosity in sharing them but also the courage and resilience demonstrated in her continuing willingness to brave the rigors inherent in accompanying a horde of seventh graders on those field trips.  A prayer or two in Sally’s behalf might not be out of place.

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  1. This is a Heck Of A Guy Confessional post. For the description and background of this format, see Meet The Confessionals. []