The story behind the song - Chelsea Hotel by Leonard Cohen

I started thinking about this new idea for the blog when I was listening to Leonard Cohen's 1985 live when he dedicates Chelsea Hotel to Janis Joplin. In that moment I thought that some songs in particular have entire personal stories behind them, so I will try to discover them, analyze the songs' lyrics and, when relevant, music videos.

Leonard Cohen wrote Chelsea Hotel no. 1 in 1972 and then replaced with Chelsea Hotel no. 2. I will now publish both songs' lyrics to see their differences, and the one thing they have in common, a splendid elegy by a songwriting's master to another, in memory of the great woman, and lover, Janis Joplin was. Nonetheless, with the glorious New York Chelsea Hotel as setting.

Chelsea Hotel #1  

                                                                                   
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel  

You were talking so brave and so free
Giving me head on the unmade

bed
While the limousines wait in the street
And those were the reasons and that was New York
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song
It still is for those of us left.
But you got away, didn't you, baby?
You just threw it all to the crowd
You got away, they can't pay you now
For making your sweet little song
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
In the winter of 67
My friends of that year they were all trying to go queer
And me I was just getting even
And those were the reasons and that was New York
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song
It still is for those of us left
But you got away, didn't you, baby?
You just threw it all to the crowd
You got away, they can't pay you now
For making your sweet little song

 Chelsea Hotel #2

I remember you
well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.
Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.  

As we can notice, the first version is a proper elegy focused on the singer's death, whereas the second one is more universal and focused on the world of music, on the pros and cons of success, and on the lust that accompanied them inside room 424.
Before performing the song, Leonard Cohen explained how they met in the hotel's elevator... In his words:

"Every concert that I give, I dedicate this song to a great American singer that I met one night in an elevator in a shabby hotel in New York City. It was a fine elevator, we found ourselves there often. I don't know what she was doing there, I think she was looking for Kris Kristofferson, I told her that I was Kris Kristofferson, but she said: "I thought he was bigger." I said I used to be bigger, but I've been sick. And we spent a little time together, and I love the way that she sang, and she died, and sometime later I think I was sitting at a bar in a Polynesian restaurant in Miami Beach, I don't know what I was doing that either. I have no programme, no five-year-plan. I just move from hotel to hotel, and from bar to bar, and by the grace of the one above, the song comes. And I remember sitting at this particularly abnotious Polynesian restaurant where they served a kind of coconut drink that was particularly little and sinister, which contained no alcohol, but a certain chemical that demoralized you entirely. And I remember writing on one of their very badly designed napkins  "I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel..."

Link to the 1985 live version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVq9K3lGtN4

Lana del Rey recently covered the song and gave it an amazing hommage through her terrific performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj_myXdOLV0