I knew her songs decades before I met the singer, though. I had… have… her albums. (Albums… there were large discs made of vinyl, with music on them. You played them on this thing called a turntable. We still have one of those as well). If you’re my age, you know her hits: Jesse, Society’s Child, Between the Lines, Boots Like Emmy Lou’s, When the Party’s Over, Watercolors (a personal favorite)… there are so many… and of course, At Seventeen.

And the music… well, words can never truly capture the feel of great music, as I discovered long ago when I wrote my rock novel, THE ARMAGEDDON RAG.

Back in the day, when I was young and music was good, a number of my short stories were inspired by lyrics in my favorite songs. “Suzanne” was the inspiration for my short story “Bitterblooms,” which remains one of my favorites to this very day.

There was a certain time in my life when I listened to Cohen’s SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE album obsessively, drowning in his voice and his words. That was in the Age of Vinyl, and I believe I wore out several needles on that one.

As Rick Nelson says in Garden Party, one of my favourite songs, "you can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself.”