A Tribute to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’ and Nick Cave’s Two Triumphant Covers

I’ve been a fan of Leonard Cohen for the last 30 years. I listen to his work often and he is firmly established on my Mount Rushmore of musical artists.

Because of Cohen’s outsized importance in my life, however, it feels daunting to document everything his music has meant to me. At some point, I’ll open a vein and go deep into my feelings about Cohen with a comprehensive, soul-baring post, but that will take far more energy and focus than I have right now.

Instead, I’ve turned to writing Cohen-adjacent blogs. A recent example is my post about Jeff Buckley, whose rendition of “Hallelujah,” Cohen’s most famous song, is the definitive cover. Future topics include a recap of the two times I saw Cohen live, a list of the best covers of his music, a look at his signature lyrics, and more.

This latest blog also touches on Cohen’s genius but remains somewhat tangential. It centers on his song “Avalanche” and the two mesmerizing yet disparate covers by another artist I’ve become a huge fan of more recently, Nick Cave.

I understand Cohen and Cave aren’t for everyone, but the music of Nick Cave and his band, the Bad Seeds, is a current obsession of mine; they are among my most-played artists on Apple Music (up there with Cohen, Steely Dan, and the Smiths). Both covers of “Avalanche” are part of the reason why.

This blog explores it all—the poetic perfection of Cohen’s song, how Cave covered it twice with absolute fucking mastery (once in 1984 and then again 31 years later in a much different fashion), and why I’m a fan of both artists and all their versions of “Avalanche.”

Cohen is one of the best songwriters of all time. Rolling Stone ranked him No. 16 on its Top 100 list, but he’s first in my book—yes, even ahead of Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon. I’m not sure where I’d rank “Avalanche,” one of Cohen’s darkest and most lyrically complex songs, among his oeuvre, but it’s in the Top 10.

Originally written as a poem, “Avalanche” is the opening track of Cohen’s depressing but brilliant 1971 album, “Songs of Love and Hate.” That album is intensely emotional thanks to tracks like “Famous Blue Raincoat” and “Love Calls You By Your Name.”

In this fan’s opinion, the album’s signature song is a lesser-known gem called “Dress Rehearsal Rag” about a man going through a practice run—a dress rehearsal—before committing suicide. It’s as dark as anything you’ll hear. And it’s probably the genesis of a famous quote that Cohen’s work was “music to slit your wrists by.”

“Avalanche,” the focal point of this blog, is equally dark but more enigmatic. As Tom Taylor wrote in “Far Out Magazine” a few years ago, it’s a “brooding song, one of darkness and mourning, but also comfort by way of opposites, in that it depicts by proxy the light beyond the avalanche’s passing. Ultimately, this is just about as moody as music can get.”

Here is Cohen’s original studio recording with the lyrics pasted below.

Well I stepped into an avalanche
It covered up my soul;
When I am not this hunchback that you see
I sleep beneath the golden hill
You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn, learn to serve me well

You strike my side by accident
As you go down for your gold
The cripple here that you clothe and feed
Is neither starved nor cold;
He does not ask for your company
Not at the centre, the centre of the world

When I am on a pedestal
You did not raise me there
Your laws do not compel me
To kneel grotesque and bare
I myself am the pedestal
For this ugly hump at which you stare

You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn what makes me kind;
The crumbs of love that you offer me?
They’re the crumbs I’ve left behind
Your pain is no credential here
It's just the shadow, shadow of my wound

I have begun to long for you
I, who have no greed
I have begun to ask for you
I, who have no need
You say you’ve gone away from me
But I can feel you when you breathe

Do not dress in those rags for me
I know you are not poor
And don’t love me quite so fiercely now
When you know that you are not sure
It is your turn, beloved
It is your flesh that I wear

–Leonard Cohen

What does the avalanche represent? Is this a song of sin or redemption? Is it about a relationship with another person or God? Does it come from a place of love or hate? Is the speaker defiant or defeated? Or is it perhaps all of the above?

My point isn’t to analyze or explain the song because its esoteric lyrics are part of the allure. That, along with Cohen’s gravelly voice, simple acoustic guitar, and haunting strings, give “Avalanche” an emotional depth few artists can match. The last two verses of admission and admonishment are the most honest and heartbreaking I’ve ever heard.

I spend a lot of time listening and trying to understand it. Each time, “Avalanche” fills me with a desperate sense of longing, loss, and introspection. That’s what drew me in as a fan. And perhaps that’s what drew Cave to cover it.

Cave is also a transcendent songwriter, and he counts Cohen as one of his influences. He said he was around 11 or 12 when he became a fan, later documenting his admiration in a poem titled “The Sick Bag Song”:

Leonard Cohen will sing, and the boy will suddenly breathe as if for the first time, and fall inside the laughing man’s voice and hide.

The boy will grow older, and over time there will be other songs – not many – ten or maybe twenty in a lifespan, that stand apart from the rest of the music he will discover. He will realise that not only are these songs sacred, they are ‘hiding songs’ that deal exclusively in darkness, obfuscation, concealment and secrecy. He will realise that for him the purpose of these songs was to shut off the sun, to draw a long shadow down and protect him from the corrosive glare of the world.

I like the concept of a “hiding song.” That’s what “Avalanche” has been for me—a sacred place to take cover and revel in a sad yet somehow uplifting state of isolation and even alienation. It nourishes creative expression, among other things, as good art should.

Cave, who listed “Avalanche” as one of his 10 favorite “hiding songs” of all time, has covered several Cohen tunes. His reverence for Cohen is apparent not only by recording his music but also how he speaks and writes about him.

As Cave said in an interview years ago, “I discovered Leonard Cohen with ‘Songs of Love and Hate.’ The sadness of Cohen was inspiring, it gave me a lot of energy. I always remember all this when someone says that my records are morbid or depressing.”

If anyone could make a song like “Avalanche” even darker than Cohen, it was Cave, who first recorded the song for the Bad Seeds’ 1984 debut album, “From Her to Eternity.” Here it is:

This version is stark, intense, and filled with the chaotic energy that defined the sound of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in their early years. It’s a frightening, guttural take on an already difficult song to embrace due to its lyrical complexity and dark aesthetic.

Miles Raymer described it perfectly when he wrote in “Entertainment Weekly” that Cave “transformed the pensive acoustic ballad into a ghoulish ode to self-annihilation.”

But Cave wasn’t done with “Avalanche.” Three decades later, in 2015, he again covered it for a TV show called “Black Sails.” This updated version was less terrifying yet more desperate than his earlier rendition.

It’s a simple, stripped-down ballad, but it still seethes with underpinnings of a pain that will never be conquered. This version trades the intensity and dissonance of the earlier rendition for something more subdued and melodic. Listen below as a calmer, contemplative Cave brings “Avalanche” to a new generation of fans.

The two versions couldn’t be more different. The first was from Cave’s younger days when he was using heroin and regarded as the dark prince of post-punk art rock. The second was recorded in his 50s during a period of heartache, loss, and, perhaps most notably, sobriety.

I love both because of their differences in sound and style, vision and voice. A perfect contrast of the same man at different stages of life—first when he’s young and unafraid to take risks, and then when he’s older and more measured.

I also love them as much as Cohen’s original, which I didn’t think was possible only a few years ago. The divergent richness that Cave’s covers offer is like listening to two different musicians. 

In March 2013—three years before Cohen died—my wife, Sandy, and I were lucky enough to see him in concert twice, first in Memphis and then a week later in Louisville, Ky. At the beginning of the second show, Cohen told the crowd that the band’s bassist, Roscoe Beck, would miss that night’s performance due to illness.

Without their bass player on stage, the band altered the setlist. Gone was “First We Take Manhattan,” a bass-heavy staple. In its place was “Avalanche,” which Cohen hadn’t been playing on that tour. What a treat to witness him perform a song that had mystified me for years—and still does.

That was a bucket list concert. Now, another one is on the horizon. Two weeks ago, I bought tickets to see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds play next May in Denver. It will be my first time seeing him live.

As excited as I am for the show, it’s doubtful I’ll hear “Avalanche.” That’s OK. He has many, many brilliant works in his catalog (I’ll share more about Cave’s work in future blogs). Besides, I’ll always have “Avalanche” to come home to as a place to hide and feel protected “from the corrosive glare of the world.”

That’s why I’m forever a fan of both Cohen and Cave—and this mysterious, hauntingly beautiful song that’s confounded and comforted me for many years and in many ways.