before i ever heard your voice, sir, i heard your song. in a coffee shop in the smallish town i was raised in, i sat and listened to a fat, beautiful woman with long brown hair sing "Suzanne" to a soft accompaniment on her guitar. she sang every word clearly, and i thought it was her song (having never before heard it), and i thought i would never find another person who could write a song i understood so well. i asked her after everyone was done clapping who she had written it about, and she began to cry. i thought i had hurt her somehow, and i excused myself before she could explain, or tell me who had written it.

a few years later, at a much-too-large party at a friend's house, i was toting my guitar and in a quiet corner, a young man named Ryan told me i should "learn some Leonard Cohen songs, man. your voice is low and dark brown like his." i still didn't know who you were.

i didn't know who you were, unfortunately, until i read the credits at the end of a film i really liked to see who on earth that was singing "Everybody Knows." then i HAD to find you. my friend Ryan's words came back and i understood what he meant. i set to learning "Suzanne."

a few years after that, i borrowed a Judy Collins songbook with chords and lyrics from a girlfriend and accidentally kept it forever. the book, of course, contained "Bird on a Wire," and "Sisters of Mercy," and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," and by now i had heard some of them, having been gifted "Songs of..." by another love. i learned them, every song of yours in the book, and i still can't play the guitar half as well as i should be able to after this long, but i still play every one of those songs.

if someone happens to be around, or maybe a few people, it seems invariably there is one who doesn't know the music yet, and they ask me who i wrote it about. i only cried the first time that happened, but i understood the woman in the coffee shop when i was a kid. "i didn't write that song, but thank you from the very bottom of my heart that you think i could have."

i finally got a chance to come see you in November of 2012. i brought my son to his first arena concert -- he wanted to see you so bad. my son and i must have hugged each other a million times during that night in Seattle, and cried and celebrated with those around us, and by the time we were halfway home that night he was going to name his first-born daughter Suzanne.

thank you, Leonard, for a lifetime of mysterious songs and mastery of music. we who hear you are the better for it.