Songwriting
Leonard Cohen was a poet and a novelist before he ever became a songwriter. While still an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal, he published a well-received book of poetry, Let us Compar...
Music
In 2008, Lou Reed (of The Velvet Underground renown) said that Leonard Cohen was in the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters." Notice that Reed didn't have much to say about Cohen's...
Title
Though Cohen has been coy about many of the song's lyrics, he has said in several interviews that the song's title, "Famous Blue Raincoat," actually refers to a specific raincoat he used to own. In...
Speaker
"Famous Blue Raincoat" is written in the form of an epistle (a letter) from "L. Cohen" to a friend who once betrayed him by sleeping with his woman, "Jane." While the "L. Cohen" in the song doesn't...