I dislike "Hallelujah" and am not aware of other songs from him. There's the line "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally" in Pennyroyal Tea, which made me not judge him, and then there was Chris Cornell's daughter Toni singing it for her father [0], which was really moving.
What am I missing out on?
Pretty much every track is a hit, but here are some four random personal favourites:
- Everybody Knows https://youtu.be/Gxd23UVID7k
- First We Take Manhattan https://youtu.be/JTTC_fD598A
- Famous Blue Raincoat https://youtu.be/ohk3DP5fMCg
- Who By Fire https://youtu.be/ilGahIwQEQ0
Obviously too many to list here though, just pick up any album. By virtue of the fact that he was an incredible songwriter, his songs have such wonderful covers.
The Tori Amos cover of Famous Blue Raincoat [0] is one of my favourites, and this cover of Who by Fire by PJ Harvey & Tim Phillips gives me chills every time [1] (also the theme for Bad Sisters which is an amazing series). Also, pretty much every Canadian who was an adult in 2010 has an emotional connection to the k.d. lang performance of Hallelujah at the Vancouver olympics [2].
[0] https://youtu.be/PMSbICWbjBw
Concrete Blonde did a great cover of Everybody Knows — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Fb4K8pNmg
Johnette is a poet herself and a fantastic vocalist; she keeps the cynicism and the heartbreak. The cover has always _felt_ like a Cohen song to me.
one of my favorite LC covers, Chelsea Hotel, by one of my favorite artists, lead singer for the Belgian band Intergalactic Lovers:
https://youtu.be/BGKIA7QUEGY?si=d_uzxaJOmiNEAJAm
If you dig her, check out this Intergalactic Lovers concert, basically most of the songs from Little Heavy Burdens:
You may enjoy the _Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song_: https://youtu.be/tKNXude-qqc?feature=shared
It’s funny, I quite viscerally hate Cohen’s original Hallelujah, but I first encountered it as sung by Jeff Buckley, and that version I absolutely love.
Otherwise I like his first album (Songs of Leonard Cohen) when I’m in the mood for something depressing, but everything else of his I’ve heard just sounds to me like a drunk on a street corner with a Casio keyboard.
I wouldn’t discount exploring further if you disliked Hallelujah, as the song is a bit niche even against LC’s larger library. Find a best of album and give it a go. ‘Everybody Knows’ and many others that you may better regard will certainly be on it.
The entire album New Skin for the Old Ceremony is worth a listen. It contains many of his “hits” and is approachable for a modern audience.