Famous Blue Raincoat
The lyric tells the story of a love triangle among the speaker, a woman named Jane, and the male addressee, who is identified only briefly as "my brother, my killer.[6][7] "Famous Blue Raincoat" has also been recorded by numerous other artists, including Tori Amos, Joan Baez, Jonathan Coulton, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Eivør and Jared Louche.[12] The melody of the "hook" line or chorus of "When I Need You" by Leo Sayer is identical to the part of "Famous Blue Raincoat" where the lyrics are as follows: "Jane came by with a lock of your hair, she said that you gave it to her that night, that you planned to go clear."Cohen sings the chorus of Sayer's number one hit from 1977, then segues into "And Jane came by with a lock of your hair", a lyric from "Famous Blue Raincoat"."Somebody sued them on my behalf ... and they did settle", even though, he laughs, "they hired a musicologist, who said, that particular motif was in the public domain and, in fact, could be traced back as far as Schubert.