In 1984, Leonard Cohen wrote ‘Hallelujah’, but still believed one songwriter was “one hundred floors above me”

Leonard Cohen regarded Hank Williams as a songwriter far greater than himself, despite writing “Hallelujah” and becoming one of music’s most celebrated lyricists. In “Tower of Song”, Cohen placed Williams “a hundred floors above” him, expressing sincere respect for Williams’s place in popular music rather than false modesty.

Cohen explained in 1994 that songs such as Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” were sublime within their own tradition, while he saw himself as a minor writer tending a small creative territory. The article also notes Cohen’s admiration for Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and Roy Orbison, but Williams was the artist he named directly in a song.