A song by lionel Cohen
Cohen strips Sorrow back down to wood and wire — a six-string bed, B# organs, stacked harmonies on the turn of every chorus, and a fuzz-caked lead guitar that comes in like it's still 1977. Organic, warm, and a little bit haunted, same as the song's always been.
"Sorrow" has been passed down and rebuilt for six decades — Cohen's take is the newest link in a pretty good chain.
Wrote and cut the original as the B-side to "Fever" — a raw, three-chord garage-folk sketch.
Reworked it into a UK hit — horns, echo, and a bigger, more romantic arrangement than the original.
Covered the Merseys' version on Pin Ups, turning it glam and orchestral — the version most people know.
Pulls it back to wood and wire — acoustic, harmony-heavy, with one fuzzed-out electric voice left standing.
Three elements do the heavy lifting on this cut — everything else is just air in the room.
Two punchy acoustic guitars drive the whole arrangement — close-mic'd.
Three-part vocal harmony blooms on every chorus, the kind of arrangement choir that turns a sad song into a singalong.
A single overdriven guitar cuts through the acoustic warmth on the turnarounds — the one electric voice in an otherwise unplugged room.
"Sorrow" has never really belonged to one artist — it's been rebuilt every decade since 1965. This version leans into the parts that first made the song work: the melody, the harmony, and one guitar that isn't afraid to get a little dirty.