Suzanne Lyrics

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About

Genius Annotation

Suzanne is the first track on Leonard Cohen’s 1967 debut album: Songs of Leonard Cohen. It was first published as a poem in Cohen’s 1966 collection “Parasites of Heaven”.

It was then first recorded by Judy Collins, also in 1966.

From the 1976 back cover of “Greatest Hits” (“some notes on the songs”):

I wrote this in 1966. Suzanne had a room on a waterfront street in the port of Montreal. Everything happened just as it was put down. She was the wife of a man I knew. Her hospitality was immaculate. Some months later I sang it to Judy Collins over the telephone. The publishing rights were pilfered in New York City but it is probably appropriate that I don’t own this song. Just the other day I heard some people singing it on a ship in the Caspian Sea.

One of Cohen’s best known songs, it has featured in many film soundtracks – among others Herzog’s Fata Morgana, Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. It also appeared in Ken Kesey’s 1992 novel I Am a Hotel. There are multiple live versions in Cohen’s official discography, and both studio and live versions were released numerous times since 1967.

Q&A

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Credits
Produced By
Written By
Recorded At
Columbia Studio E, New York
Release Date
December 27, 1967
Songs That Interpolate Suzanne
View Suzanne samples
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