8 Leonard Cohen Live Rarities That Show His Onstage Evolution
Invisible Hits is a column in which Tyler Wilcox scours the internet for the best (and strangest) bootlegs, rarities, outtakes, and live clips.
The title of Leonard Cohen’s second LP, Songs From a Room, is a good indication of the songwriter’s personal and private approach to his art. But Cohen, who would’ve turned 83 today (September 21), spent a good portion of his career venturing outside of that room, bringing his work to stages around the world—sometimes reluctantly. “I wrote the songs to myself and to women several years ago,” he told a Manchester audience in the early 1970s. “And it is a curious thing to be trapped in that original effort, because here I wanted to tell one person one thing and now I am in a situation where I must repeat them like a parrot chained to his stand, night after night.”
Despite his misgivings, Cohen was more often than not a magnificent performer, delivering graceful (and occasionally adventurous) concerts for more than 40 years. While he is well represented by official live albums (eight, to be exact), a dive into Cohen’s onstage rarities paints a more complete picture.
Poetry Reading + “The Stranger Song” in New York City, 1966
On Valentine’s Day 1966, Cohen took the stage at New York’s 92nd Street Y to share selections from his new novel, Beautiful Losers, alongside a few pieces from a previous volume, The Spice Box of Earth. Even at this early date, his skill as a performer is evident, as he navigates the more risqué moments (for 1966, anyway) from Beautiful Losers with warmth, wit, and perfect timing. For those who’ve spent the last year binging on Cohen's gravel-voiced swan song, You Want It Darker, his smooth, sonorous tones here could be a welcome change. At the end of the reading, Cohen lets his audience know his ambitions stretch beyond poetry and prose, as he sings a captivating version of “The Stranger Song.”
BBC Recordings in London, 1968
Cohen took the plunge into music with his 1967 debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen. As strong as that effort is, the unreleased, oft-bootlegged recordings the songwriter made for the BBC at various points in 1968 provide us with the definitive snapshot of Cohen in his early days. The first session, taped in front of a studio audience at London’s Paris Theatre, features beautifully assured versions of almost all of Cohen’s first LP, supported by the sensitive accompaniment of Strawbs leader Dave Cousins on banjo and guitar and Danny Thompson of Pentangle and Nick Drake’s band on upright bassist. Stick around to ‘til the end for an intimate duet with Julie Felix on “Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye.” Overall, an essential listen and one worthy of official release, despite slightly deteriorated sound quality.
Tension-Breaking Improvisations in Tel Aviv, 1972
The BBC tapes are pristine and note-perfect. But as Cohen’s popularity increased, he loosened up a bit onstage, often peppering his sets with improvisations. His 1972 tour supporting Songs of Love and Hate took him to Israel for the first time. On the first night in Tel Aviv, overzealous security guards clashed with the audience, continually interrupting the music. “I know you’re trying to do your job,” Cohen pleads. “But you don’t have to do it with your fists.” He improvs a dark and ominous tune, dedicated to “the machines”: “I know you got souls, machines/But you’ve fallen into slavery.” At the end of the show, things seem to break down entirely, with Cohen attempting a last-ditch “We Shall Not Be Moved.” But it’s not all doom and gloom. The most amusing part is a little ditty Cohen busts out before “Sisters of Mercy”: “I love spending the night with two girls,” he croons, “it’s better than one… and it’s better than none.”
“Do I Have to Dance All Night?” in Paris, 1976
Cohen never scored a dancefloor hit, but he did attempt one with this disco-tastic single, recorded live in 1976 and released in limited quantities across Europe. “I’m 41, the moon is full/You make love very well,” the aging Lothario sings over an infectious beat and cooing backup singers. “You touch me like I touch myself/I like you, mademoiselle.” As an entertaining, out-of-character show closer, it works wonderfully, but it’s hard to imagine it setting Studio 54 aflame. But he’d flirt with disco just a bit more later that year when recording the infamous Death of a Ladies Man with Phil Spector; “Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On” is without a doubt the funkiest song to feature both Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg on backing vocals.
“Blues by the Jews” in Birmingham (England), 1979
Cohen was the kind of songwriter who didn't seem to let anything go to waste, allowing songs to percolate for years before coming together. The deliciously sacrilegious “Blues by the Jews” is one of his few unreleased tracks, performed just a handful of times in 1979 and 1980. “It’s a very nasty song,” he says by way of an intro. “I think it’s in G.” A devilish, 15+-minute slow blooze crawl follows, with a hilariously deadpan Cohen singing from the point of view of early 20th-century evangelist Billy Sunday. While his band vamps sleazily behind him, Cohen’s character rails against the Almighty: “He doesn’t like the universe/It drives him up the wall/He doesn’t care much for the universe/It drives him up the wall/He’s sorry that he ever thought of you and me at all.”
“Tower of Song” in Oslo, 1988
Like many of his contemporaries, Cohen stumbled a bit in the ’80s. He took several years off early in the decade, stricken with a bout of writer’s block. And when he did return to action with 1984’s Various Positions, Columbia Records saw so little commercial potential in the LP that they passed on releasing it in America—despite the fact that it contained what would become two of Cohen best-loved songs, “Dance Me to the End of Love” and “Hallelujah.” But he found his footing again with 1988’s I’m Your Man, an album that saw him contrasting synthetic sounds with his ever-deepening “prophet of doom” vocal range. “Tower of Song” was one of the album’s most minimal efforts, with a cheap drum machine ticking slowly but steadily behind Cohen’s decidedly amateurish Casio keyboard solos. Onstage, the song’s tension is heightened, with Cohen relishing every droll line and his backup singers moving slowly to the robotic rhythm. It’s a downright unsettling performance, with an ineffable whiff of menace to it. You could be fooled into thinking this one was filmed at the Roadhouse from “Twin Peaks.”
“A Thousand Kisses Deep” Reading on KCRW, 1998
I’m Your Man and its 1992 follow up, The Future, put Cohen back in the limelight, earning him some of the best sales and reviews of his career. But he tired of the music industry treadmill, retreating to a Zen monastery atop southern California’s Mount Baldy for much of the later ’90s. Cohen was still writing, of course, and throughout the decade he worked on “A Thousand Kisses Deep,” a song at the intersection of body and soul that eventually appeared on his 2002 comeback album Ten New Songs. In 1998, he granted a rare interview to Santa Monica station KCRW’s staple program Morning Becomes Eclectic, at one point reading “A Thousand Kisses Deep” unaccompanied, his world-weary voice matching the desolate lyrics perfectly. “I'm turning tricks, I'm getting fixed, I'm back on boogie street,” he intones hypnotically. Cohen was well into his sixties at this point, but his muse was still driving him to explore the darkest corners of the human experience.
“Hallelujah” at the Montreal Jazz Festival, 2008
Even its author grew tired of lukewarm “Hallelujah” covers, as the song became a soundtrack perennial and go-to vehicle for any singer in search of readymade gravitas (for this writer, John Cale’s is the only cover worth hearing). “I think it’s a good song,” Cohen told the CBC with a chuckle. “But too many people sing it. I think people ought to stop singing it for a while.” Fortunately, Cohen didn’t include himself in that assessment. He performed “Hallelujah” at most of his latter-day concerts, giving the song an appropriately dramatic reading that often saw him falling to his knees, his eyes tightly shut with emotion. In his hands, it was still a song that cut to the quick, right up to the end.
