This collection includes Cohen's best loved songs from his early albums, demonstrating his poetic genius and his talent for the simple but enduring melody line. The album Songs Of Leonard Cohen yielded So Long Marianne, Sisters Of Mercy and Suzanne, while Who By Fire and Lover Lover Lover come from New Skin For The Old Ceremony. Songs From A Room is represented by Bird On The Wire, Tonight Will Be Fine and The Partisan, while the album Songs Of Love And Hate is a bit under-represented by Diamonds In The Mine only. What about Joan Of Arc or Famous Blue Raincoat? As a collection of Cohen's early classics this will do fine for the novice, but I recommend the individual albums mentioned above since they are all individual masterpieces containing brilliant sets of songs, lots of which are omitted here. It's best to enjoy Cohen's bittersweet music in its original context.

Leonard Cohen is a genius and one of the finest English language poets in history -along with Milton,Wordsworth,Byron,Keats,Shelly,Yeats etc.One of Cohens compilations - 'Suzanne' is in The Norton Anthology of Poetry which is one of the most comprehensive and repected English Language Poetry antholgies, with works stretching from old Anglo-Saxon times until the present day Each song on this album is a work of poetry in itself The genius of Cohen partly lies in the facts that most of his his lyrics are left wide enough for different types of people in different situations to relate to .My personal favourites include the hauntingly beautiful 'Who By Fire' ,the tender 'So Long Marianne' , the outcry of frustration embodied in 'Bird On The Wire' , that alltime classic 'Suzanne',the soothing 'Tonight Will Be Fine' -that great anthem of freedom -in a world still full of dictatorships from Cuba to China and Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe -'The Partisan' and the powerful indictment of the cruel ungodly scourge of abortion -'Diamonds In The Mine.

So Long, Marianne is a stupendous compilation of Cohens early works. Songs like So long Marianne, Sisters of mercy and many others showcase this brilliant artist. He is an amazing vocalist and a very accomplished lyricist without writing meandering lyrics which is not easy. The book-let is a shoddy story. The photo is nice enough. But there are no lyrics included and no information to what album what tracks come from. Even so this is a compilation not to be missed!