“You got the feeling that half of the nearly 2,000 fans in the cathedral-sized theater would have genuflected if Cohen did nothing more than read the Western Avenue bus schedule.” 1985 L.A.In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.īefore he found fame as a pop singer and literal clown, Leo Sayer was a songwriter.“There’s nothing like singing for people… wonderful opportunity to explore the song itself” Leonard Cohen.“When dissolve, there’s a great sense of liberation.” Leonard Cohen.Best Videos Of 2013 Leonard Cohen Tour: I Tried To Leave You – Brussels.Kaddish Said In Memory Of Leonard Cohen At Wailing Wall In Jerusalem.Photo: Mitch Watkins & The Guy Who Carries Leonard Cohen’s Guitar Board Plane 2012.Examining Allusions In & Provenance Of “Silver Bullet Suicides” In Leonard Cohen’s Field Commander Cohen.I wanted to weep for the innocent people my bomb would have to maim…” From Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen I wanted to live in a folk song like Joe Hill. ![]() “I always wanted to be loved by the communist party and the mother church.Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life by Anthony Reynolds.Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Leo Sayer, “When I Need You” (Rhino Insider: May 14, 2019).Legal battles? Cohen’s Zen With That by James Adams (Globe & Mail: February 11, 2006).The original nicking incident to which Leonard Cohen refers was Kris Kristofferson raising the speculation that he “ stole that tune from that Lefty Frizzell song Mom and Dad’s Waltz.”.Oh, by the way, the same melody can be heard in Elton John’s “Little Jeannie” in the lyrics Stepped into my life from a bad dream / Making the life that I had seem / Suddenly shiny and new. ![]() The money was paid into our joint company Stranger Music because my father was worried that if we didn’t, this would alert the other side to the fact that Cohen had chickened out, because then they would not have settled. Cohen said he wanted nothing to do with the case or the money. He said: ‘That’s not what my spirit is there for.’ So, we had to settle out of court and the deal we got was 15 per cent of the royalties when we would have got 100 percent in court. He told us that he would never submit himself to cross-examination in a court. But then we hit a problem: Cohen! He refused to testify. So, we were looking at substantial damages and royalties. Hammond’s people, Sayer’s people… they didn’t have a leg to stand on … and they knew it. Anyway, the melodic similarities were obvious and we immediately launched a lawsuit. It was credited to a songwriter called Albert Hammond. ‘When I Need You’ was beyond bad as a piece of music in my opinion, but it was a number one on both sides of the Atlantic. ![]() It was a straight rip off of Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’. “In 1977 my father had called me up from London and asked me to listen to a record by a British singer called Leo Sayer,” remembers Steven. Steven Machat, son of Leonard Cohen’s lawyer and manager, Marty Machat explains,įor the Machats, business continued as usual. 3 The LawsuitĪnd what about Leonard’s comment that “somebody sued them on my behalf?” Well, that’s yet another story. It should be noted that “When I Need You” was Mr Sayer’s biggest hit, topping the Billboard Hot 100, the Adult Contemporary chart in the US, and the pop charts in the UK, Canada, and Ireland. Yep, it turns out that the chorus of “When I Need You” - (When I) need you / I just close my eyes and I’m with you / and all that I so want to give you, is only a heart beat away - is, experts agree, musically identical to the portion of Leonard Cohen’s song “Famous Blue Raincoat” where Cohen sings Jane came by with a lock of your hair / She said that you gave it to her that night / That you planned to go clear. Do you remember that song When I Need You? … Somebody sued them on my behalf… and they did settle they hired a musicologist who said that particular motif was in the public domain and, in fact, could be traced back as far as Schubert.
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