clenching your fist for the ones like us

This holiday season, I made a Leonard Cohen mix CD for a friend who had never, to his knowledge, heard a Leonard Cohen song.

When he saw the title "Chelsea Hotel #2", he asked whether there had been a #1, which prompted me to do some digging.

In the Leonard's Greatest Hits (1997) album notes he says: "I wrote this for an American singer who died a while ago. She used to stay at the Chelsea, too. I began it at a bar in a Polynesian restaurant in Miami in 1971 and finished it in Asmara, Ethiopia just before the throne was overturned. Ron Cornelius helped me with a chord change in an earlier version."

In 1994, during a BBC radio interview, Cohen apologized for ever linking Janis Joplin's name to this song. He referred to it as: "the sole indiscretion in my professional life."

Apparently, there are lyrics to a sort-of Chelsea Hotel #1 floating around on the internet, but it's not a different song, it's just a not-as-good first draft. So just stick to hearing Leonard the way he wants you to hear him.

Obey Leonard Cohen!