One of the first songs that I remember David liking was “First We Take Manhattan” written by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. As one who had enjoyed Cohen since his early days it was a wonderfully gratifying moment, especially as David had discovered the track on his own. Cohen’s quasi-synthpop version of “First We Take Manhattan” (with additional verses) was released in 1988 as the first track on his album I’m Your Man. Cohen’s then-girlfriend, Dominique Issermann, shot a black and white promotional video for Cohen’s version of the track.
On his 1988 tour, instead of the original, Euro-disco-influenced arrangement of his studio version, Cohen introduced the new, funk-influenced arrangement, suggested by his backing singers Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen. He continued to perform the song this way in 1993, 2008 and 2009 tours. Cohen’s studio recording plays over the closing credits of the 2009 film Watchman.
The song’s oblique lyric is suggestive of religious and end time themes with references to prayer, meaningful birthmarks and signs in the sky. Ben Hewitt writing for The Guardian in 2015 drew attention to the lyric’s apocalyptic nature, imagining Cohen “greedily eyeing world domination like a Bond villain”. Rolling Stone magazine’s Mikal Gilmore similarly described the song as a threatening vision of “social collapse and a terrorist’s revenge”.The Daily Telegraph’s Robert Sandall likewise observed the prophetic character of the song, but emphasized the song’s political statement, placing it in the context of the last days of the Soviet Union.
Cohen explained himself in a backstage interview at 1988: “I think it means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song. I think it’s a response to terrorism. There’s something about terrorism that I’ve always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don’t like it when it’s manifested on the physical plane – I don’t really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I’ll give you a paraphrase of it. It was ‘well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there’, he says. ‘But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking.'”
Warnes’ original recording is notable for the distinctive driving lead guitar played by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Producer Roscoe Beck was from Austin, Texas and friends with Vaughan. In late February 1986, at the annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Beck asked Vaughan to record the guitar for the song. In a 2007 interview, Beck recalls that Vaughan did not have his guitar or amp with him, and used one of Beck’s old Strats instead. After working on a few technical problems, the finished recording was achieved after two or three takes. According to Jennifer Warnes’ official site, Vaughan finished recording his takes at 4 AM.
The song has been covered dozens of times. Most notably, R.E.M. contributed a cover for the Cohen tribute album I’m Your Fan. Their presence on the compilation led to a re-arranging of the I’m Your Fan track list. In the US release of the tribute, R.E.M.’s cover appeared as the first track, rather than House of Love’s “Who by Fire” which was the starting track in all other countries.
Joe Cocker covered “First We Take Manhattan” on his 1999 album No Ordinary World. Other artists to cover the song include Show of Hands, Cookies ‘N’ Beans, and Widespread Panic.
