"Suzanne" is homeless.

[Hannah Bell]

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.


http://strangebirdy.blogspot.com/2008/03/birdsongs-story-of-suzanne-by-leonard.html

http://shoreacres.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/suzannes-mirror-reflections-on-a-homeless-muse/

[Withywindle]

1. I would SO donate a little money, if I knew where.

She inspired one of the most beautiful songs of all time. (Nina Simone's version is my favorite too, and I rank Fairport Convention's second and Leonard Cohen's own third.)

It's not right.

[pa28]

2. Well, she may be homeless but most of us will never have a song like that.

I ran into that one about a year ago on Pandora and downloaded Cohen's records. It's one of those songs you hear once and you have to go back again two or three more times. Classic.

[Withywindle]

3. That song gets played and covered so much that I would think even a tiny percentage

of the royalties were set her up nice.

It's not like Leonard Cohen didn't write another gajillion excellent songs to collect from. He's one of a small handful of the greatest songwriters of the latter 20th century. He could help out and it wouldn't hurt him.

[pa28]

4. You'd think she would see something.

Cohen's work is good but that one was inspired.

[Withywindle]

7. How many times has "Hallelujah" been in movies and TV?

(Disclaimer: my favorite version of that one is John Cale's.) He could spare a little for sure!


I love "Avalanche," "Last Year's Man," "Stories of the Street," "Lover Lover Lover," "Take This Waltz" and "Democracy" most of all.

[pa28]

8. I was looking for something new to listen to.

I'll have to go through Cohen again. You know when you hear the real thing.

[Withywindle]

9. Indeed.

I also love "Sisters of Mercy," "Famous Blue Raincoat," and "First We Take Manhattan."

[pa28]

10. I'll check those out.

I had a bad week, out late and there is no way I'm going to bed!

Lately I've been listening to Kosheen (this one rocks)

and Portishead

[Withywindle]

12. I'm a huge Leonard Cohen fan.

You can't go wrong with any work of his.

And yet, this whole Suzanne thing bothers me. There's such a long history of male artists getting rich off the backs of their female muses, and meanwhile, generations of women inspired to poetry by men have been consigned to oblivion.

[AnneD]

13. Women have the babies....

men get the credit, unless the babies are illegitimate-then women get nothing but blame. And you can quote me.

[Hannah Bell]

17. yep, it's a lot of royalties. & cohen came from moderate wealth to begin with.

which is why he could afford to spend years hanging out in the "art" scene, on greek islands, etc.

[Hannah Bell]

5. she's also the ex-wife of a famous rich sculptor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Vaillancourt

he looks scruffy, but he's got bucks.

[tkmorris]

6. Thank you Hannah Bell

Thank you very much.

[ima_sinnic]

11. a sigh of nostagia for my youth

that song, and the entire album, were always in the background in that little East Village 5th-floor walkup back in the last millennium sometime.

[shoreacres]

14. Suzanne Verdal missing

Thank you so much for linking to my post about Suzanne. Ironically, I received an email some time after writing it from a fellow in Canada, who also was trying to find Suzanne. He was helping the man who had introduced she and Cohen, years ago.

The last traces of her I found were those in southern California, although I suppose more serious research might turn up something. It's a sad, beautiful story, and the song is absolutely gripping.

[Hannah Bell]

15. thank you for posting. i'm sorry you weren't able to find what happened.

with two very wealthy men in her background, you'd think one of them could buy her a little house where she could survive on her disability check.

[Greyhound]

16. K&R.