Leonard Norman Cohen, CC, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963.

Cohen's earliest songs were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. The 1970s were a musically restless period in which his influences broadened to encompass pop, cabaret and world music. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in lower registers , with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers.