The Original Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox
Biggest Influence on My Music
The jukebox. I lived beside jukeboxes all through the fifties. There was “The Great Pretender,” “Cross Over the Road.” I never knew who was singing. I never followed things that way. I still don’t. I wasn’t a student of music; I was a student of the restaurant I was in — and the waitresses. The music was a part of it. I knew what number the song was.
Leonard Cohen1
Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox: Over the years, Leonard Cohen mentioned a number of specific songs he favored. Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox is a Cohencentric feature that began collecting these tunes for the edification and entertainment of viewers on April 4, 2009. All posts in the Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox series can be found at The Original Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox Page.
Leonard Cohen re Red Rubber Ball: “I loved it, still do.”
Red Rubber Ripples:
Paul Simon, The Cyrkle, John Simon, Leonard Cohen
The following excerpt is from I’m Your Man by Sylvie Simmons (2012):
John Simon was twenty-six years old, “just another junior producer among many at Columbia Records – That is, until I made a lot of money for them with ‘Red Rubber Ball.‘” The song, cowritten by Paul Simon … and recorded by the Cyrkle, whom John Simon produced, was such a big hit that even Leonard was aware of it. (“I loved it,” said Leonard, “still do.”) As a result John Simon earned “… some decent artists to produce,” first Simon & Garfunkel, then Leonard Cohen. [emphasis mine]
Uploaded by John1948ThreeB2
I am republishing selected posts from my former Leonard Cohen site, Cohencentric, here on AllanShowalter.com (these posts can be found at Leonard Cohen). This entry was originally posted Dec 27, 2015.
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- Yakety Yak by Scott Cohen, 1994 [↩]