Leonard Cohen said:

I remember saying to my lawyer who was accompanying me there[NYC]. In a state of panic, I said 'I can't sing [!], and he said, none of you guys can sing. If I want to hear singers, I go the Metropolitan Opera.

I certainly never had any musical standards to tyrannize me.

It was something to do with the truth, that if you told your story, that's what the song was about.