The Counterculture

Leonard Cohen came of age in the 1950s, prior to the youth rebellions of the 1960s. Nevertheless, his emergence as a songwriter and recording artist in the later 1960s occurred in the midst of the counterculture of the period. If Cohen always dressed like a visitor to that scene from an earlier time, he often behaved in a way that was very much in keeping with the youth culture of the time. His relationships and representations of them are an expression of what was called the “sexual revolution.” His use of drugs, while not a major subject of his songs, was consistent with the habits of the rock stars of that moment. His search for spiritual and personal fulfillment over and above traditional markers of success illustrates another dimension of the counterculture. This chapter explores Cohen’s complicated relationship to this cultural phenomenon, which involves mutual influence and a certain distance.