Sharon Robinson, the voice and vision behind “Boogie Street.” Her presence brought the sacred feminine into Leonard Cohen’s later work — not as muse, but as co-creator.
In the stillness that follows Cohen’s gravel-lined whisper, Sharon Robinson’s presence emerges not just as a harmony, but as a co-creator. A quiet force. A woman who wrote, produced, and sang alongside him — often from the shadows. But as with all things feminine, it is often in the shadow that the deepest presence is felt.
“Boogie Street” wasn’t Cohen’s lyric. It was hers. Every line — from “O Crown of Light, O Darkened One” to “We are so lightly here” — came through Sharon. Leonard gave voice to it, yes. But the breath, the blood, the original ache — they were hers.
And that changes everything.
It transforms Boogie Street from a masculine lament into a feminine revelation. It reveals the street not just as a return, but as a birth canal. A womb of integration. The place where the holy must pass through form, and the divine meets dust without apology.
Robinson’s voice — literal and lyrical — holds a balance that Cohen revered: intimacy without sentimentality, power without force, sensuality without performance. She channeled something eternal, wrapped it in the textures of modern life, and handed it to a man who could feel it enough to echo it back.
That is the sacred feminine at work.
The Feminine Presence in Cohen’s World
Leonard Cohen always had a reverence for the feminine. Not in a pedestal kind of way — but in that deeply human, flawed, longing-filled way that recognized the feminine as both gateway and mirror. Suzanne, Marianne, the Sisters of Mercy — all aspects of the inner feminine as much as outer muses.
But with Sharon, something shifted.
This was not muse, but equal. Not reflection, but source.
Sharon Robinson’s presence in Cohen’s later work — especially on Ten New Songs — marks a kind of soft revolution. It was as if the poet who had so long sung of longing had finally allowed the feminine not just into his verses, but into the creative act itself. And in that, a kind of healing took place.
The feminine was no longer chased. It was allowed.
Boogie Street as Embodied Metaphor
To walk Boogie Street — as Sharon gave it to us — is to walk the line between mystery and meat. Between the cosmic and the cigarette. Between love that disappears and love that folds the laundry.
It is the feminine path. Not in gender, but in energy.
And it is no surprise that Boogie Street still reverberates through hearts today. Because it speaks to the journey we’re all making — back into embodiment, back into presence, back into the street where heaven stoops low enough to kiss the earth.
Sharon knew.
And because of her, now we remember.
