Suzanne is a song written by Canadian poet and musician
Leonard Cohen in the 1960s. It has become one of the most-covered songs in
Cohen's catalogue. In 2006, Pitchfork Media listed the song #41 on their list
of 'The Top Songs of the 1960s'.
Leonard Cohen specified, notably in a BBC interview, that the
song was about encountering Suzanne Verdal, the then girlfriend of sculptor
Armand Vaillancourt, in a Montreal setting. Indeed, many lines describe
different elements of the city, including its river and a little chapel near
the harbour, called Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, which sits on the side of the
harbour that faces the rising sun in the morning, as it is described in the
song.
Suzanne Verdal was interviewed by CBC News's The National in
2006 about the song. Verdal claims that she and Cohen never had sexual
relations, contrary to what some interpretations of the song suggest. Cohen
himself stated in a 1994 BBC interview that he only imagined having sex with
her, as there was neither the opportunity nor inclination to actually go
through with it. She says she has met Cohen twice since the song's initial
popularity; once after a concert Cohen performed in the 1970s and once in
passing in the 1990s when she danced for him, but Cohen did not speak to her.
Verdal never benefited financially from the song's enormous commercial success.
In any case, its lyrics first appeared as the poem
"Suzanne Takes You Down" in Cohen's 1966 book of poetry Parasites of
Heaven, admittedly because of lack of new material.
