When a friend of mine asked me to make a "Best of Leonard Cohen" CD for her, I had to fight the urge to simply copy this album for her and tack a few later gems like "Everybody Knows", "Chelsea Hotel #2", and "Waiting for the Miracle" onto the end. As an English scholar, I firmly believe that this man is the most evocative lyricist modern music has yet produced. This album is not marred by the lackluster filler songs (think of "Jazz Police") that his later albums contain. For whatever reason, he has hit the mark with every song here, and when Leonard Cohen hits the mark it reminds me of why I believe humans create art in the first place. My memories of this album are chiefly associated with hearing it while driving through Indiana in the middle of the night, with flatness all around me, smoking a whole pack of cigarettes in two hours and being unable to find a motel with any vacancy. This album made me think, "Someone else out there knows what I'm feeling and expressing it even better than I could." And I felt more alive and human knowing that there was someone who I could make that emotional connection with. And that is why I think humans create art.

Cohen's most sincere poetry is here, in songs like "Suzanne", "So Long, Marianne", and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye". Somehow, while giving these women names and very specific personalities, Cohen paradoxically makes you feel that he is singing about the woman who just left you, or whom you just left. This is not an album to listen to lightly or at parties, unless they're two-person wine-and-weep parties with your closest friend in the world. It demands your attention in the same way that a whisper in a loud room can make everyone shut up and listen to who's whispering.

I suppose this record is not for everyone, though I've never met anyone in that group. Cynics, fans of simplistic pop lyrics, and those who dissect songs as if they were algorithms may want to look elsewhere. But for anyone who's ever just felt alone, or who has realized too late that all love ends, or anyone young who thinks that no one understands their desire to run off into a field at midnight and just scream because there's so much pain in the world, this is a record to own. Trust me, Leonard feels the same way. And that, somehow, makes it just a little bit easier to take.

I remember first hearing his gravelly voice wafting out of a friend's dorm room late one wintry night, and invited myself in to listen to Cohen's music the last semester before I graduated, and was blown away by the way this guy sang and by what he had to say. Needless to say, I've been listening ever since, for this is a quite unique album, a first effort by Leonard Cohen, the Canadian Jew who is a poet and novelist turned songwriter and folk singer. He known as the "poet of existential despair", a man of soaring visages and terrible nightmares, all put to beautiful and classic melodies. This album is the stuff of legends, with "Suzanne", "Hey, that's No Way To Say Goodbye", "So Long, Marianne", "The Master Song", "The Stranger Song", "Sisters of Mercy", and a number of others. His voice is painful, hypnotic and gravelly, literally oozing with the kind of deep desperation his evocative lyrics blend perfectly with. The guitar work is clear, and immaculately appropriate, and the rest of the arrangements are spare and fit the folk song style he employs.

Others like Judy Collins made hits out of a number of these songs, especially "Suzanne", but no one sings them with the same kind of heart struck originality Cohen delivers. He is still around, by the way, newly emerged from a few years in a Zen monastery as the master of all he touches, and is considered a kind of elder statesman of folk-rock. Quite a mysterious and interesting soul, as they say. Almost everyone has recorded some of his stuff, and there is a tribute album that is a best seller. But this is where the rubber first hit the road, and after you've listened to this a few times, preferably late at night with a bottle of good wine half down your gullets, you'll understand why there's been over thirty years of excitement fuss about Leonard Cohen

In my opinion, Leonard Cohen is one of the greatest singer-songwritters ever and almost everything he has recorded is gold. You really can't go wrong with any of his albums but his 1968 debut "Songs of Leonard Cohen" is a masterpiece. It is one of my favorite albums of all time. Every song is great and there are no fillers. "Songs of Leonard Cohen" is Cohen at his best lyrically, musically, and vocally. The album is overall mysterious, dark, brooding, delicate, beautiful and paints strange and amazing pictures in the mind. I have never read anything about how these songs related to Cohen's life but there is no need because Cohen makes it all so clear and you can see and feel it all happening while listening to the album. I could go on and on some more about how great this album is but I will simply say this is essential, no matter what you listen to, it's just great music.

My first Cohen song was (I think) on Judy Collins lp, Wildflowers, 1967/8. My first lp was Songs from a Room, in the summer of '69. By then I'd managed to read Beautiful Losers, and Favorite Game, and the poetry collection, Spicebox of Earth and basically everything I could find. Since those days I have bought all his albums, and all his poetry collections (particularly fine, Energy of Slaves). With all that, this is the album I come back to most often. This is the most beautiful, compelling album. Yes, the production is maybe off (because of Simon). Yes, his voice isn't as richly used as later. But these songs change you. And that is what art is truly about: changing you in the heart.

Leonard Cohen's first album is a flawless debut, full of powerful and evocative imagery that is at once both poetic and prosaic (indicative of Cohen's talent as both a novelist and a poet). "Suzanne" is a perfect opener, with its haunting, repetitive melody built around the half step between the third and fourth on both the F and Bb chords and its surreal lyrics. "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" is another highlight of the album, a song about human frailty and accepting the inevitable. Cohen is famous for the way he combines the spirit and the flesh in the quest for redemption and he does this beautifully in songs such as "Sisters of Mercy" and "Teachers". Cohen's work is not background music. People might complain about Cohen's voice but I would rather listen to him sing than an opera singer anyday. His untrained, recognizable voice gives the music a more human quality, making it that much easier to relate to. Give this music your full attention and you will be well rewarded.