It was 1975. My pal Anne and I were waiting in line outside a Chicago club where Leonard Cohen would perform that night, when Mr. Cohen himself came around the corner, smiled at the two of us, then continued inside.

“Did you see that?” I said. “He noticed us!”

“We must be his type,” Anne said. “Or one of them, anyway.”

I was a nice Jewish girl from suburban Detroit. Anne was a minister’s daughter from Ohio. We were both juniors at the University of Chicago. My guitar-playing boyfriends had been courting me with “Sisters of Mercy" and “Famous Blue Raincoat” since high school, and I was eager to check out the real deal. Anne was a sometimes folksinger who often performed Mr. Cohen’s songs herself, her lovely soprano accompanied with somewhat haphazard guitar playing.

The club was packed and the show was terrific. Pulling into traffic afterward, we realized that Mr. Cohen was riding in the car ahead of us. It was a big old station wagon, and Mr. Cohen and the drummer were in the back seat, facing us.