Each March 21, World Poetry Dayinvites the same thing: to return to a word that still resists. But sometimes poetry is not in books but in a song. Or, rather, in a song that was once a poem.
And what better than “Suzanne”the song that promoted, catapulted the work and recognition of one of the most unique artists of the 20th century. Poet before singer-songwriter. Better: a man who made words his only profession: Leonard Cohen.
Cohen: more than singing, he narrated. For years he was more recognized for his songs than for his voice.This year also marks ten years since her death and sixty since that first appearance of “Suzanne”. That origin fits into few things that contain everything: a half-crazed woman, the river, the rags of the Salvation Army like a dress, a tea with orange pieces. And with that, Cohen put together a world.
The poem before the song: how “Suzanne” was born in books
The song is, in a sense, the revenge of poetry. It makes her immensely popular. And few stories illustrate it better than this one.
Because “Suzanne” was born as a poem.
Cohen held the same pulse as in his poems: simple images, a hypnotic cadence and a unique way of saying.In the mid 60’s, Cohen had already published novels and books of poetry. He was far from being a composer. But he was a writer who thought in images, in rhythm, in tone.
A poet capable of mixing the sacred and the profane naturally, as if there were no border between the two. A secular fascination for Christian and Jewish melodies that, over the years, would decant into gems such as “Hallelujah” or “You Want It Darker”.
The text appeared first in Parasites of Heaven and it began to circulate as a different piece: intimate, visual, with the pulse of cinema, which would later mark all of his work.
The real story behind Suzanne Verdal, the woman who inspired the lyrics
Yes, Suzanne existed. And not.
It was called Suzanne Verdalpartner of a close friend of Cohen, the sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. He lived near the Saint Lawrence River, in Montreal.
Suzanne Verdal, the woman who inspired the lyrics.“He served me tea with orange pieces,” Cohen recalled in the interview book. Cohen by Cohen. From there came one of the most recognizable verses in popular music.
But as in all his work, reality is just a spark. Or a flame, to put it on its own terms.
“People come away from the songs,” he said. “They give you a seed. Then the song takes another path.”
That woman. And the river. And tea with oranges.
The Suzanne of the lyrics is also the landscape: the port, the ships, the sailors’ church. A way of seeing and introduction to an amazing discography.
Cohen worked like this: he put images together until something revealed meaning. As in that other verse of yours—a crack in everything, where the light enters—here there is also a revelation, but more intimate and silent.
And then that verse appears:
“And you want to travel with her
and you want to travel blind…”
Judy Collins and the version that came before Cohen’s
The world heard “Suzanne” before in another voice: in 1966, Judy Collins he recorded it on his disk In My Life. That version caught the attention of the musical scene and left Cohen on the map of the musical world.
Only later would his own recording arrive, in Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), their debut album. “Suzanne” would be his letter of introduction and one of his first great classics, along with “So Long, Marianne”, “Sisters of Mercy” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”.
For years, Cohen was more recognized as a composer than a performer. Her voice—velvet and sandpaper at the same time, from a basement where one takes refuge—does not seek to impose itself. Narrate.
From Cohen to Serrat: how the song crossed languages and expanded
The song would find new life with Joan Manuel Serrat who covered “Suzanne” in Catalan in 1996, within the album Soundtrack of a time, of a country.
A project where Serrat returned to songs that marked him—his own and those of others—, linked to memory, identity and an idea of cultural resistance.
It is not just a translation: it is a reading.
Serrat orders what is drift in Cohen, brings closer what is mystery in the original. But the song resists that operation.
Because its core—that mixture of desire, mysticism and everyday scene—remains intact.
A poem that became a song: tea and oranges that come from China
Suzanne takes you to a place by the river
You can hear the boats go by
And you know she’s half crazy
But that’s why you want to be there
Serrat on stage: her version of “Suzanne”—in Catalan—made a song born on the other side of the river closer.And he gives you tea and oranges that come from China
And just when you want to tell him that you have no love to give him
And let the river respond
Poetry, still
This year they meet ten years since Cohen’s death. And of “Suzanne”, almost sixty.
But the dates say little compared to what the song continues to achieve.
Because what’s in “Suzanne” is not just story or melody. It’s a way of looking. That ability—so his—to bring together things that were not together before and make them vibrate.
He Indio Solari He wrote that Cohen revealed to him “an unknown beauty” and took him to a place he was not going.
“When a group of words achieves resonance, it is because there is a truth there,” said Leonard Cohen.
That’s what we call poetry. And sometimes, also, a song.
