ONE AFTERNOON IN 1966, LEONARD COHEN CAME TO MY home in New York City to play me his songs. A mutual friend, Mary Martin, had been telling me for years about this obscure poet from Montreal, and how she loved his obscure poetry. When she said he had written some songs, I asked if they were also obscure. “Oh, yes,” was her reply. Leonard arrived and talked with me and my friends, and then we went to dinner, where I learned an awful lot about Leonard and his poetry and how he was living with his girlfriend Marianne on the Greek island of Hydra and barely scraping by. As we parted, I said, “You never sang for me!” He came back the next day and played “Suzanne,” “Dress Rehearsal Rag”…