11. Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel No. 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx83eIVkKyo Written by: Leonard Cohen; released in 1974. Who it's about: '60s icon Janis Joplin. Leonard Cohen has made his career as a wildly acclaimed songwriter, known for his poignant and honest lyrics. His words have been heard by millions around the world, the most famous case being, of course, Hallelujah, a song that did not find fame until it was covered by Jeff Buckley. However, across his decade-spanning career, Cohen has written countless other beautiful songs, including Chelsea Hotel No. 2. Cohen admitted in concert that the track was written about an affair - or, more specifically, an encounter - that occurred in New York City's famed Chelsea Hotel, and went on to tell a story that made it explicitly clear that the other person in the encounter was legendary singer Janis Joplin. One such introduction went as follows: "A long time ago there was this Hotel in NYC, where a lot of musicians used to stay. There's a very great singer who used to stay there [...] And I used to meet her in the elevator, very late at night, around three in the morning. She wasn't looking for me, and I wasn't looking for her. But there was nobody else up at that time. I think she was looking for Kris Kristofferson." Kristofferson was a lover of Joplin's, and wrote her posthumous hit Me And Bobby McGee. Another introduction described the subject as "a great singer who died at the end of the '60s." Joplin died in 1970. Years later, Cohen became regretful for having opened up about the subject of his song, as well as the explicit way in which he described their encounter. In 1994, he admitted that he wished he had not connected the song to Joplin's name, and that there were some way to apologise to her ghost for "the indiscretion."