Lost my voice in New York City
never heard it again after sixty-seven
Now I talk like you
Now I sing like you
Cigarette and coffee to make me sick
Couple of families to make me think
Going to see my lawyer
Going to read my mail
Lost my voice in New York City
Guess you always knew.

Given to reflection, thought, idea and imagery, sweet memoir and memorizing, Leonard Cohen writes in his own way clutching along love and frustration, hope and despair, lost love and attachment, going down the memory lanes to collect and recollect. The folk and the ecclesiastical, the poetic and the personal, the mystic and the loverly elements he fails to discern and dislodge them instead of gathering pace as a rock star. The pace of modern society and culture, modern life-style and trends, it is difficult to clutch it always, stride along. Guess you all that. What did happen to him, what not? But the loves are behind his songs telling of his proximity and break-ups. But putting them aside, let us see him differently. A lover boy in a cowboy hat he is but a bohemian, a gypsy. 

Now he sings like it, now he dreams like it as the New Yorkers dream it. He sings as they sing it. He rocks and rollicks as they want him do. Cigarette and coffee make him sick. But still a couple of families make him think. Taking a lift out of the busy schedule, as the work demands some legal works to be dispensed or maybe it the rift in personal relationships or for some reason or routine work, he goes to meet the lawyer. He goes to check the mails.

A Canadian Jew he could not be a ditto New Yorker going with the pace and rave of it, catching the rhythms, the beats and vibes, the nuances and idiosyncrasies, but was a Canadian, a Canadian singer. Leonard Cohen sang it from his heart, sang it from his soul. He was a music-maker, always a song-maker, a melody-maker.

The poet as a songwriter, a musician, a singer feels it ever  the passing pace of life, his qualms and prejudices. How have the times changed? How are the people with their behaviors? How are the people around him? How is he too as a man! What sort of lover is he himself! The poem also tells about his initial failure as a poet and the latter-day turning to song, music and recording and he passed his time in giving performances, making a name, gaining the applause in America.  

A great musical personality, a singer and a songwriter, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Supporters’ Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The poet remembers how he tries to identify with the crowds pacing towards or in and around New York City, the gala and glitz of it so decorative and different, so varying with, the jazz, the blues and the rock n’ roll he has seen it. Who would take care to know him? Who would like to mark him? For whom has he turned into a New Yorker of some sort?