Leonard Cohen: Music’s Most Scandalous Ladies’ Man

Leonard Cohen was much like one of his own poems: seductive, haunting, and almost impossible to pin down. Beneath his fedora and tightly tailored suits lurked a gravelly voice, a chaotic genius, a trust-fund starving artist, a womanizing Zen monk, and a perfectionist folk singer who almost lost his mind writing the world-conquering Hallelujah. The truth of his life was stranger and far more tumultuous than any lyric he ever penned. Many great artists have troubled childhoods, right? Leonard Cohen fits the cliché, but don’t take his word for it. Born September 21, 1934, in the well-to-do Montreal neighborhood of Westmount, he grew up in a prominent Jewish family with deep community ties. Cohen later claimed his upbringing was very decent, with none of the childhood wounds others seemed to carry. The tragedy he faced when he was just a kid makes you wonder: was Cohen just messing with us in his trademark style?

Leonard would grow into the kind of man who made women swoon, but he definitely didn’t start out that way. As one biographer put it, he was a fat little kid no one liked. He may not have had friends, but he did have a chauffeur and a governess. Still, all of the comforts in the world couldn’t prepare him for the shock of his father’s sudden passing when he was just nine. Young Leonard’s response, let’s just say it was anything but typical. As one thing in Leonard’s life was lost, another was discovered. After watching his father’s casket descend into the frozen Montreal ground, the nine-year-old found a way to grieve. He took a bow tie from his father’s closet, cut it open, sliced in a farewell note, and buried it in the backyard later. He later said it was the first thing he had ever written. The bow tie would become a key moment in his origin story, an early hint of how he’d spend his life turning grief into beauty with words.

Hypnotic is a word often used to describe Cohen, and perhaps that talent showed up earlier than anyone realized. When he was 13, he found a book about hypnotism and quickly discovered he had a knack for it. After practicing on pets, he decided to try his skills on the family housekeeper. He asked her to sit on the sofa and told her to relax. It went very wrong, or right, depending on who you ask. The Cohen family housekeeper may have come to regret being such a good sport. Speaking slowly and softly, young Leonard successfully put her into a trance and told her to undress. To his astonishment, she did. Years later, Cohen would call the first sight of an undressed woman a holy vision. But something else happened that day. At just 13, he discovered a strange power. With just his voice and a few carefully chosen words, he could move people in ways he barely understood.

At 15, Leonard Cohen started playing the guitar. By 19, he was in a country band with some friends called the Buckskin Boys. They played square dances at church halls, wearing fringe jackets and fake ponytails. Cohen adored poetry, but his raging hormones had other plans. As he later admitted, with these little songs I wrote, I could impress myself and others, including girls. It’s not surprising that Cohen attended Canada’s Harvard, aka McGill University, but it is a little amusing to imagine the poet as a fraternity bro. While at McGill, poet Irving Layton spotted Cohen’s talent and took him under his wing. By 22, Cohen had published his first book, Let Us Compare Mythologies, which he dedicated to his late father. One publication called it a brilliant beginning. Decades later, Cohen joked there were some really good poems in that little book. It’s been downhill ever since. In some ways, he wasn’t wrong. It would be years before Leonard Cohen wrote the lyric, “First we take Manhattan.”

But in 1956, fresh out of McGill University, that’s exactly what he did. His family could take comfort in the fact that he had enrolled in graduate studies at Columbia University, but that was just a cover. Cohen’s real plan was to go to New York and become a serious writer. Within months, he was swept up in the city’s wild energy, for better or for worse. When Cohen hit New York, he was like a kid in a candy store, especially when it came to romance. Before long, he was juggling three women at once: a nurse, a child care worker, and a fellow student. What could be better than being young, wealthy, and in love times three, while chasing your writerly dreams in the Big Apple? Too bad amid all of the glitter and excitement, Cohen’s first real darkness was already closing in. While studying at Columbia, Cohen faced his first serious depression. In those days, his mother’s remedy for a dark mood was a simple shave. In New York, things ran even deeper. Staring out his window at the Hudson River, he wrote a poem called The Shaving Ritual. Little did the future godfather of gloom know that the darkness was just getting warmed up.

Of his time at Columbia, Leonard Cohen later said it was passion without flesh, love without climax. After only a year, he returned to Montreal. Then in 1960, he received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and headed to London. His first purchases say a lot about him: a typewriter and a soon-to-be-famous blue Burberry raincoat. He’d need it for London’s endless rain, at least until a chance encounter changed everything. The 25-year-old Burberry-wearing poet had locked himself in a damp British garret or a boarding house with a goal of three pages a day, determined to become a serious writer. It was a classic starving artist fantasy, except Cohen wasn’t starving and London’s gray skies were starting to wear thin. It all went out the window after Cohen complimented a bank teller on his remarkable tan. When he learned the teller had just been in Greece, Cohen booked a flight almost immediately.

When Leonard Cohen stepped off a ferry onto the tiny Greek island of Hydra, it was like he had wandered into another universe. The harbor glittered in the sun, whitewashed houses dotted the hills, and the cafes were full of artists from around the world. For the sad poet who had drifted there from dreary London by way of snow-covered Montreal, it was heaven. But Hydra would soon change Cohen’s life in ways he never imagined. Despite the idyllic surroundings, Cohen found his groove on Hydra. With no electricity, no phone, and barely any running water, the only distractions were the mules braying in the car-free laneways. Cohen would go to sleep at 3:00 a.m., wake up at 6:00 a.m., and then write for hours. Afterward, he’d swim in the sea, eat at a harbor cafe, and then grab a nap before happy hour. Of course, that type of schedule takes a certain energy. Life on Hydra may have been low-tech, but he wasn’t short on chemical inspiration. Leonard developed a fondness for maxiton, a form of speed, and mandrax, a sedative to help take the edge off afterward. He also experimented with acid, hash, and opium. As Leonard Cohen later recalled, “I took trip after trip, sitting on my terrace in Greece, waiting to see God.” Soon enough, Leonard would be the one making an appearance, bathed in an almost holy light.

Leonard loved women. Full stop. It didn’t matter if they were single, married, or pushing a stroller. Enter the famous Marianne Ihlen. One day, in a local shop on Hydra, she looked up to see Cohen poised in a doorway with the sunshine beaming behind him. He invited her to join him and his comrades. Marianne later said, “He radiated an enormous compassion for me and my child.” In that moment, the striking Norwegian beauty stepped into Leonard’s orbit, and neither of their lives would ever be the same. Even though Leonard was living on Hydra in the early 1960s, pre-summer of love and widespread birth control, the island’s bohemian crowd was famously free-spirited. Leonard Cohen quickly earned a reputation. At one painfully awkward dinner, Cohen arrived with Marianne only to discover that he had already slept with two of the women sitting at the table. Marianne was starting to realize exactly what kind of man she had fallen for.

Marianne Ihlen didn’t come to Hydra looking for love, and she wasn’t looking for another tormented author. Her husband, writer Axel Jensen, had abandoned her for another woman, and their son was just four months old, leaving Marianne stranded and heartbroken on the island. When fate placed Cohen on that sunlit threshold, everything changed. Before long, they were living together, an instant, happy family. But whenever love started to settle in, Cohen had a habit of drifting away. Marianne and Leonard made quite a pair. She was a striking blonde muse, and he was the guitar-strumming poet with simmering magnetism. Much to Marianne’s frustration, women were always circling Leonard Cohen. According to legend, one distraught admirer even threw herself into the harbor as Cohen boarded a ferry for the mainland. “All the girls were panting for him,” Marianne later recalled. “I would dare go as far as to say that I was on the verge of offing myself due to it.” Knowing that several understudies were waiting for Leonard’s spotlight pushed Marianne into a painful place. During their time together, she became pregnant several times. But Cohen had made it clear that he didn’t want more children, and Marianne didn’t want to tie him down. So, quietly and painfully, she chose not to have them.

Neither Leonard nor Marianne was entirely innocent. Over the years, both had affairs, and they fought just as passionately as they loved. Even paradise on Hydra couldn’t hold them together. After eight years, the relationship slowly fell apart like falling ashes, as Leonard later described it. But the house, the island, and Marianne herself remained part of his world. Even after so long, Marianne remained a muse and a memory he could never fully leave behind. By 32, most men in the 1960s were settling down, but Leonard Cohen had just walked away from Marianne and her son, the precious ones I overthrew, for an education in the world. It was clear no one could domesticate him. Family wasn’t enough. Success on the Canadian literary scene wasn’t enough either. He decided to return to the city that had chewed him up and spit him out once before, but this time as a singer-songwriter. When Cohen arrived in New York, he moved into the legendary Chelsea Hotel, part museum and part madhouse. It was full of artists, writers, and bohemians. Arthur Miller once praised it as a place with no vacuum cleaners, no rules, and no shame. Cohen’s fourth-floor setup was spartan: a bare bulb, a hot plate, and a sink where it took 10 seconds for the rust-brown water to run clear. By the 1960s, the place was crawling with musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin. Cohen was in heaven, and his big break was just around the corner.

By day, Leonard Cohen would lock himself up in the boho frat house that was the Chelsea Hotel and write. By night, he’d hang out in small clubs, trying to break into the folk scene. Then, folk singer Judy Collins heard him sing a haunting song called Suzanne. She was so impressed that she invited him to perform at a major fundraiser on the same bill as Jimi Hendrix. But Cohen had a nasty habit of getting in his own way, and this was one of those occasions. Despite having his very own cheerleader in the form of folk star Judy Collins, he had a monumental lack of confidence. When he finally made his official debut at her New York fundraiser, Collins watched nervously from the wings as his legs shook inside his pants. He barely made it through the first verse of Suzanne before stopping, mumbling something, and running off the stage. Leonard Cohen was no longer on Hydra strumming his guitar for his friends at the cafe. This was New York and the biggest break of his life. Unfortunately, he was on the verge of blowing it. Backstage, Cohen insisted he couldn’t go on, but Collins refused to let him quit. This time with the crowd cheering, the trembling poet finished Suzanne. Even though the performance wasn’t perfect, it was too powerful to ignore, and before long, an even bigger opportunity came knocking.

Leonard may have been a diamond in the rough, but fate soon placed him in the path of the perfect talent spotter. In the 1960s, John Hammond was one of the most powerful A&R reps in music. He’d already launched artists like Billie Holiday and Pete Seeger, and he famously discovered Bob Dylan. So when Hammond started hearing buzz about a poet turned songwriter named Cohen, he decided to hear the man for himself. John Hammond invited Leonard Cohen to lunch and afterward they walked back to Cohen’s room at the Chelsea so he could play Hammond a few songs. Perched on the edge of his bed under a single overhead bulb, Cohen played for nearly an hour while Hammond sat in the room’s only chair, eyes closed, listening in silence. When Cohen finally finished, Hammond opened his eyes, smiled, and simply said, “You’ve got it.” Too bad not everything came to him so easily. Signing with Columbia Records might have been easy, but recording the album, not so much. Leonard Cohen would lock himself in his Chelsea hotel room, puffing on substances and wondering if New York had finally beaten him. When he did emerge, the city and the hotel’s wild characters made sure nothing was ever calm.

When Songs of Leonard Cohen finally dropped, critics weren’t quite sure what to make of it. The New York Times said he sounded like a sad man cashing in on self-pity and adolescent loneliness. Everyone else went wild. He didn’t just sell records; he created a cult. By the early 1970s, he was growing tired of the sensitive poet label, and his personal life was unraveling. It was a recipe for disaster. By 1977, a burnt-out and vulnerable Leonard Cohen made a fateful move. He teamed up with legendary and volatile producer Phil Spector. The studio quickly turned into a psychological battlefield where Spector insisted on blasting the air conditioning until it was a bone-chilling 40 degrees Fahrenheit, about 4 degrees Celsius. It was painful enough for Cohen to record albums under optimal conditions, let alone shivering in his overcoat. People may assume Cohen’s legendary Hallelujah arrived in a flash of divine inspiration. It did not. Cohen spent nearly five years wrestling with the song, filling over 80 notebooks with as many as 150 verses. At one point, he was so frustrated that he ended up in his underwear, banging his head on the hotel room floor while trying to find the right words. When he did finally finish it, the response was the last thing he expected. Not many recording artists set out to question the deeper meaning of life, and the suits at Columbia Records didn’t get Hallelujah or the rest of the Various Positions album. The label shelved it in the US, forcing Leonard Cohen to release it on a tiny indie label. Ironically, the song went on to become one of the most covered songs in modern music, turning up everywhere from Shrek to American Idol. One journalist said the song’s magic came from its balance of both biblical and intimate layers.

In the mid-1990s, Cohen suddenly found himself struck in the middle of a nightmare. His 17-year-old son, Adam, whom he shared with Suzanne, was in a horrific car crash. Adam suffered a broken neck and ribs, a collapsed lung, and multiple fractures. He remained in a coma for months. A terrified Cohen spent his days at the hospital bedside reading the Bible to his unconscious son. When Adam finally woke up, his first words were, “Dad, can you read something else?” Say what you want about Cohen; he was a trusting soul. After years on Mount Baldy, he returned home to discover that his longtime manager and former romantic partner, Kelley Lynch, had robbed him blind. To rebuild his fortune, Cohen set out on his first world tour in 15 years. One unlikely stop was the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Wait, what? Cohen was neither young nor loud, but under the desert moon, the 74-year-old delivered a hypnotic set that brought the crowd to tears. By the end of the multileg tour, he hadn’t just recovered his money; he’d become the coolest artist on the planet.

Women may have come and gone in Cohen’s life, but over the decades, he never truly said so long to his muse, Marianne. When he received word that she was about to succumb to leukemia, he immediately sat down and penned a final note to the woman with whom he shared an unbreakable bond. This time, the famously slow writer didn’t have the luxury of time. Grab your tissues. Cohen’s letter to Marianne was heartbreakingly perfect, and it quickly spread around the world. He wrote: “I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, just as yours has, too. I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty,” the letter continued. “But you know that I don’t have to say anymore. Safe travels, old friend. See you down the road. Endless love and gratitude.” He would follow her sooner than anyone imagined.