Folk music

When Cohen started to write songs, the musical formation of which he was first a part was the folk scene. Cohen reports that socialist folk singers in Montreal first got him interested in songs. When he decided to pursue a career as a singer and songwriter, he went to New York, because it was the hub of North American folk music. He hung out and performed at such folk venues as the Bitter End, and his songs were first recorded by such folk singers as Judy Collins. Cohen’s earliest songs display the influence of this scene, as did his preferred style of performance, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar. His unhappiness with the way some of the songs on his first album were produced seems to have stemmed from their not sounding like folk. And yet the lyrics of Cohen’s songs have little in common with those typical of a genre that claimed to reflect the people rather than the individual. This chapter considers how folk molded Cohen’s work, and where his work pushed the boundaries of the genre.