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My parents-in-law had an old friend who with her folk-singer husband ran a club in Montreal in the early 60s. Bob Dylan came through town before he changed his name. They were sitting around after the show and Annette said to him: "Kid. You better go back to college. You need something to fall back on." Dylan told her: "If I don't, you'll eat my hat."

She had other great stories. Lenny Cohen played "Suzanne" for her and said "what do you think?" Annette: "it stinks. who wrote it?" Lenny: "I did."



I'd like to add the caution that songs might change a lot during their author's life, and the "suzanne" she heard might be different from the one we know.


Annette sounds like a straight shooter.

Cheers from Montréal!


She’s not wrong


Later on, Michael Stipe of REM wrote a song that shamelessly ripped off Suzanne, except it was about merging a human's DNA with a crocodile. He asked Peter Buck what he thought, and Buck said "it's great, but it was great when it was Suzanne too".


Aw come on. It's Suzanne by Lenny Cohen.


I don’t know how exactly we got on this topic, but there’s also an excellent Weezer song called “Suzanne.”

Edit: I guess it’s actually spelled “Susanne.”




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