I first heard Suzanne by Leonard Cohen in an Austin Morris 1100 with a great sound system. It was in the car park out the back of Blackburn Church of Christ. Me and DJ Parker were listening to Leonard Cohen and Moody Blues and sneaking ciggies in his big brother's car. Talking about girls and music.
The song"Suzanne" really got to me. Probably because I was going through a church thing in 1975 and exploring religion and Suzanne was a big hit with teen Christians.
I went out and bought the album at K-Mart in Burwood. $5:99. Not bad price. Had to be careful though because a couple of years earlier I'd been banned from the shop for shoplifting. Not that I was particularly guilty of it. The girl I was with thought it would be fun to put one of their Cadbury chocolate bars in my bag. I guess I was framed.
No worries though and got the record home alright. So I sat in my room and listening to the low tones of Leonard. Song after song was just great. I think The Partisan was the first one I really dug but they were all great. I thought they would have made great pop songs too.
I was starting to have a strange balance of music. I was writing songs in 75. My two big influences would have been Leonard Cohen after this record and Electric Light Orchestra. So I was writing lovely poppy tunes with titles like "Death of a Hong Kong Prostitute" and "Now I'm On My Own". Cheery stuff like that. It probably didn't help listening to Doctors of Madness on the side.
Never get sick of this batch of songs though. really never!
No comments:
Post a Comment