7. Leonard CohenSongs From A Room

This is probably my favourite record of all time. I still dissect his lyrics to this day. When I was 18 I was really into grunge, my first band was a rock band, I didn’t like acoustic music, then I got into Leonard Cohen through the lyrics of Nirvana’s ‘Pennyroyal Tea’, ‘Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld’. That’s kind of how you discovered music pre-internet! I’m so grateful for having had to search for information, it made you feel like you had won some kind of prize. I went to the record store and bought this on cassette tape, then drove around in my little beat up Honda Civic and fell in love with it.

It changed my songwriting, it really influenced the trajectory of my life. After discovering Leonard Cohen I started playing acoustic music. Around that time, I was 18, all shrouded in black, I wouldn’t wear colour again for fifteen years of my life. This record was just it for me. There are certain things you can’t say with essays or words. So many different mediums and arts exist because sometimes a painting can capture a feeling of light better than a photograph, or a song lyric can capture love or loss better than a whole essay. He’s the one who sets the bar the highest for me in terms of raising the medium of song lyrics.