Tower of Song (song)

"Tower of Song"
Song by Leonard Cohen
from the album I'm Your Man
Released February 1988
Genre Synthpop
Length 5:37
Label Columbia Records
Songwriter(s) Leonard Cohen

"Tower of Song" is a song written by Leonard Cohen that appears on his 1988 album I'm Your Man. In a 2014 reader's poll, Rolling Stone listed it as the 8th favorite Cohen song.[1]

The genesis of "Tower of Song" is described in Ira Nadel's 1996 Cohen memoir Various Positions:

"Tower of Song" is the keynote work of I'm Your Man. With it, Cohen wanted to "make a definitive statement about the heroic enterprise of the craft" of songwriting. In the early eighties, he called the work "Raise My Voice in Song." His concern was with the aging songwriter, and the "necessity to transcend one's own failure by manifesting as the singer, as the songwriter." He had abandoned the song, but one night in Montreal he finished the lyrics and called an engineer and recorded it in one take with a toy synthesizer.[2]

Cohen revised the song, which contains the rumination, "I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice." Ever mindful of his reputation as a "flat singer" among critics, audiences often react when Cohen sings these lines live. Cohen also cites Hank Williams, a songwriter he has professed great admiration for, in the song ("...a hundred floors above me...").

Cohen recited the lyrics in full when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[1][3]

"Tower of Song" has been covered by many artists,[4] notably on the tribute albums I'm Your Fan (separate covers by Robert Forster and by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (separate covers by Martha Wainwright and U2). It also appears, among others, on Marianne Faithfull's album Vagabond Ways, Tom Jones' album Spirit in the Room and The Jesus & Mary Chain's album The Sound of Speed.

References

  1. 1 2 Greene, Andy (2014-11-26). "Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Leonard Cohen Songs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
  2. ↑ Bruce., Nadel, Ira (2007). Various positions : a life of Leonard Cohen (1st University of Texas Press ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292717329. OCLC 74569146.
  3. ↑ Nichols, Michelle. "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts Madonna, Cohen". reuters.com. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
  4. ↑ "Five Good Covers: Tower of Song (Leonard Cohen)". Cover Me. 2013-08-13. Retrieved 2018-08-17.


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