Leonard Cohen: Ten New Songs

Leonard Cohen was born in 1934, and considering not just the productive life but the physical life of most popular music performers, it’s a little surprising that he was still active in 2001, at the age of 66, when this album was made. It’s even more surprising that he was still doing great work, at least if you think of him primarily as a songwriter, and as a songwriter primarily a lyricist. His singing is down to a sort of mannerism, and he gets even more help than usual from the sighing female voices with which he’s always adorned his music. But there are several songs here that I’d rank with his best, and not a single bad one. Perhaps his gift has fallen off somewhat, as his singing partner, Sharon Robinson, is given co-writing credit, but the lyrics are classic Cohen, so I would guess that Robinson’s contribution was more musical than lyrical.

The album has a mild weakness: the arrangements, also credited to Sharon Robinson. They’re simple and tasteful, which is all to the good, but too slick; the instrumentation is bland and synthetic-sounding, giving the album an inorganic feel which doesn’t suit Cohen’s voice or the songs. That aside, though, anyone who likes Cohen’s older work should not think that this late work can be safely passed over. The standout songs for me are “A Thousand Kisses Deep,” “Love Itself,” “Alexandra Leaving,” and “By the Rivers Dark.” The rivers referred to in the last one are those of Babylon, and the song should be heard with reference to Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.”

“Love Itself” is reminiscent of St. John of the Cross. The speaker is having some sort of mystical experience, bathed in holy light and love, but then:

I’ll try to say a little more
Love went on and on
Until it found an open door
Then love itself,
Love itself was gone.

Here’s the AMG review.

By the way: Music of the Week is going on a six-week leave of absence: I’m giving up pop music for Lent. I plan to give a thorough hearing to several classical works of a religious nature, starting with Elgar’s Dream of Gerontion, and will probably discuss them here, but don’t want to commit myself to a regular schedule.