Neurotic Affiliations

Cohen was born and raised in the Westmont neighborhood of Montreal, where his family had lived for several generations. Cohen’s first artistic community was the literary one in and around McGill University in Montreal where he took his bachelor’s degree. In The Favourite Game , it is reported that “Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past.” One critic has remarked of that novel that the problem with its protagonist, Lawrence Breavman, is that he can’t let go of anything, and since Breavman is like his creator in most things, it’s hard not to read the line quoted above as self-referential as well. Cohen, like Breavman, “fled the city,” but he always returned, indeed even to his mother’s house before she died. Cohen’s songs may not very often be literally about or set in Montreal, but they are of that place, just as the Beatles’ songs are of Liverpool. This chapter explores Montreal as a source and context for Cohen’s work.