Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs

by Leonard Cohen

Overview

Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs celebrates the astonishing career of Leonard Cohen, revered around the world as one of the great visionaries, writers, performers, and most consistently daring songwriters.

Cohen’s career began in 1956 with the publication of Let Us Compare Mythologies, and he has since published eight books of poems – including The Spice-Box of Earth, Death of a Lady’s Man, and Book of Mercy – and has made numerous albums, becoming one of the most popular and influential artists in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

His first record, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, released in 1967, was a remarkable musical début and introduced some of his most famous songs, including “Suzanne,” “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” and “Sisters of Mercy.” From then, and with each subsequent album, he earned the status as one of the most dazzlingly literate songwriters of our time.

Stranger Music brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of Leonard Cohen’s song lyrics and his poetry, including some poems not previously published. This landmark edition demonstrates the range and depth of Cohen’s work, revealing an extraordinary gift of language that speaks with rare clarity, passion, and timelessness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679755418
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/28/1994
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	186,975
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Leonard Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934. He received his B.A. from McGill University and pursued graduate studies in English at Columbia University. Soon thereafter, he returned to Montreal and worked in his family’s clothing business while he continued to write poetry.

His artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of Let Us Compare Mythologies. He has published nine collections of poetry, most recently, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (1993), and two novels, The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). During the sixties he achieved national and international acclaim as a composer-singer. He has made seventeen albums, the latest being Dear Heather (2004). Numerous tribute albums, in many languages, have celebrated his songs.

Cohen was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991, and promoted to the rank of Companion in 2003. He received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 1993, and has won numerous Juno Awards.

Editorial Reviews

Cohen is probably best known as the writer of the lyrics for the song ``Suzanne,'' made famous by Judy Collins, but has written a great many other songs, too, as well as poetry and prose poetry not set to music. In reading through this generous selection, one often hears the ghost of musical accompaniment, and sometimes its actual presence is missed. The writing alone, forthright in its rhythms, plain of speech, often rhymed, and almost immediately accessible, seems well suited to the ears of a live audience. So fans of the songs will be in luck, here; but readers who prefer slow subtleties, or a kind of poetry that gradually expands in meaning on rereading, or ambitious craft, won't find it in a piece like ``For Anne,'' which begins ``With Annie gone, / Whose eyes to compare / With the morning sun?'' Cohen's writing is oral in flavor, and asks us to ``read'' it mainly by hearing it. This works to the disadvantage of a book, where words stay put and aren't sung. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

To appreciate these poems, we must suspend any notions of poetry as an intellectual art form and approach this work as one would a rack of greeting cards. Rhyme abounds, frankly showing Cohen at his best because it holds his didactic nature in check. Although there are few surprises, such as the wonderful early poem ``Beneath My Hands,'' the songs from Cohen's first album, written over 30 years ago, are still his finest displays of outrageous yet stunning imagery. The presence of woman as lover, prostitute, or slave, celebrated in these early songs, continues into his latest work, making over 400 pages seem remarkably flimsy. That these women never seem to exist as individuals will possibly offend readers with a feminist bent. Yet despite almost pornographic descriptions, this Jewish poet still will not write outG-d's name. The Buddhist element in his 1984 poetry collection, Book of Mercy , is now scarcely evident. Despite its flaws, this book is recommended for popular collections.-- Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, ``Soho Weekly News,'' New York

Library Journal

Stranger Music brings together, at last, the words of a Canadian artist who has been anything but a stranger to so many of us for so long.…Cohen has woven a chain of words that binds us together.”
–Calgary Herald

“Stranger Music is a massive record of the poet’s imaginative journey through beauty, through horror, through the extremes of love and despair.…Cohen is always a poet of extremes: that’s where he lives, at the edges of them.”
–Toronto Star

“Stranger Music is a record of Cohen’s dispatches from the front, an invaluable record of a shining voice. It burns still.”
–Ottawa Citizen

From the Publisher