My last review was the crazy heavy
metal horror opera of King Diamond’s “Abigail” so this next album was quite an
auditory adjustment. I’ve been a bit stressed this week, though, and ending it
with a little Leonard Cohen is just what the music doctor ordered.
Disc 1094 is…Ten New Songs
Artist: Leonard
Cohen
Year of Release: 2001
What’s up with the Cover? Cohen is no stranger to the
Giant Head album cover, but this time he goes with Two Giant Heads in deference
to the key role Sharon Robinson played in co-writing and performing on the record.
How I Came To Know It: As an avowed fan of Cohen’s music
since the late eighties, I just bought his albums as soon as they were
released. That’s what happened here.
How It Stacks Up: I have thirteen studio albums by Leonard
Cohen. I love them all including this one. I had originally reserved ninth spot
for it but I feel like a few records are better than it after all so I’ve
bumped it to twelfth. There is no shame in being the twelfth best Leonard Cohen
album, though.
Ratings: 3 stars
I began my walk home tonight in the dark and rainy
gloom of a west coast winter with my brain racing with work like a hamster on a
wheel, but the soothing tones of Leonard Cohen slowly soothed my troubles. He didn’t
get me off the hamster wheel so much as show me there were other avenues my
mind could explore that were so much better for the spirit.
High praise for an album I rank so low, but such is
the power of Cohen’s art; he lifts you to a higher understanding even amidst
the gloom. Or as he puts it on “That Don’t
Make it Junk”:
“I’ll listen to the
darkness sing –
I know what that’s
about.”
This record was written and recorded during a period
that Cohen had gone into voluntary exile at a monastery in California. Shed of
all worldly distractions he was reconnecting with himself. It feels like the
same old Leonard to me – willing to admit his own fallibility and find some
wisdom in the wreckage, if maybe a bit more subdued.
“Ten New Songs” is a reflective collection of songs,
with Cohen at his best when he explores relationships gone awry. “In My Secret Life” explores that
imaginary place we go where things worked out, juxtaposed against the failure of
the real world, first about lost love and later about more general human
failings. It is a brilliant song that survives a truly horrible drum machine
beat – but more on that later.
My favourite song on the record is “Alexandra Leaving,” another song
exploring relationships. It is a complicated one and I freely admit my
interpretation could be…er…open to interpretation. To me, the song explores one last sexual tryst, followed by the end of the relationship come
dawn. Cohen is obsessed with an open and honest exploration of what went wrong.
The song is replete with great lines, but the stanza I think most telling is:
“As someone long
prepared for the occasion;
In full command of
every plan you wrecked –
Do not choose a
coward’s explanation
That hides behind
the cause and the effect.”
The song reminds me of an earlier track from “Recent
Songs” called “The Traitor” and
explores a relationship that continues behind falseness after it should rightly
end.
“Alexandra
Leaving” is based off of a poem by C.P Cavafy called “The God Abandons Antony” which is about leaving the city Alexandria, and the way Cohen and
Robinson have reimagined it is gorgeous on its own, and even more layered when
you read the poem, then listen to the song.
It isn’t all sadness and loss, though. “You Have Loved Enough” is an intimate exploration
of both love and sex. When Cohen decides to put a little allure into that
gravelly voice he woos with the best of ‘em and the line:
“That I am not the
one who loves –
It’s love that
seizes me,
When hatred with
his package comes,
You forbid
delivery.”
Is a lesson for us all: just cross your arms and let
that UPS guy return that stuff to sender.
So what caused this record to tumble to twelfth? The
biggest issue is the production. A lot of the recording of the album is done on
simple computer equipment with a lot of electronic drum beats where on a lot of
other Cohen albums relies on live musicians for everything – usually great
ones. There are musicians aplenty on “Ten New Songs” as well but they are a bit
too buried in the mix.
Also, while the slow soul-music style croon works on
some tracks it gets a little old by the end of the record. I found I was
increasingly hoping for a bit less ambient hum and a bit more of good old
fashioned strings and pianos.
For all that, I was still happy to revisit this
record and – like Cohen’s entire catalogue – I will keep doing so until the day
I follow him into whatever comes next.
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