He's your man: PEN - the world's oldest literary and human rights organization - held their first ever Songwriting Awards, and two musical legends were honoured: rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry, and Canada's Prophet of Despair, Leonard Cohen. In honour of Leonard's decades of iconic, poetic songwriting, we've put together a playlist of some of the best covers that his work has inspired (but no 'Hallelujah' covers - as beautiful as they are, those are pretty easy to come by these days...):

Leonard Cohen by George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight on Grooveshark

Shawn Colvin added to the body of Cohen covers when she performed 'Come Healing' from Leonard's latest album, 'Old Ideas' at the PEN Awards tribute, which took place at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Mass.

Novelist Salman Rushdie presented the award to Cohen, and paid the songwriter a very serious compliment: "Put simply, if I could write like that, I would". Also present at the ceremony were Elvis Costello, Paul Simon and Keith Richards, who paid tribute to Chuck Berry, and Bob Dylan sent an email tribute to both Berry and Cohen.

The two inaugural winners were selected by a panel made up of Costello, Simon, Rushdie, U2's Bono, Rosanne Cash, Smokey Robinson and poet Paul Muldoon.