Leonard Cohen’s real voice didn’t appear until the 1990s. It descended from a stripped-down, tender baritone in 1967’s “Suzanne” to a deep, clear-ringing baritone-bass in 1984’s “Hallelujah” all the way down to a broken-down bass in 1992’s “Waiting for a Miracle”. In the late 60s Cohen’s voice was the fragile, earnest voice of a young poet singing his deeply personal love poems to the twanging chords of an acoustic guitar. In “Hallelujah” his voice is God’s voice; it resonates with clarity and simplicity. Each lyric is a sober pronouncement against the uplifting harmony of a church choir. Then, in the 1990s his real voice arrives, a voice that fills each line with deep, raw vibrations that give way to a suggestive rasp. Not even time could smooth down the rough edges of this voice. It is the voice of a man who has gone beyond God, beyond everything and emerged on the other side busted and broken-down and capable of pronouncing the truth but only because he doesn’t know anything else. It’s the kind of voice that could scrape out “It’s lonely here/ There’s no one left to torture” viciously, honestly, sexily. Leonard Cohen pulls out each battered word and pronounces it with a throat made of sand and gravel. His voice is a booming growl that threatens its listener with the awful truth. Each syllable is imbued with the raw clarity that comes only from defeat, from hopelessness, from pessimism so deep the speaker mistakes it for reality. It’s my kind of voice.
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