salivation's Full Review: Songs of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen
I would be willing to bet that Leonard Cohen was an old man long before he began to look it. And I would also be willing to believe the possibility that he was born exhausted and out of breath. But I don't know that for a fact.
What I do know that there are a lot of 60's singer/songwriter albums out there. I was never really into Bob Dylan, and long before I discovered the majesty of Nick Drake, there was only Leonard Cohen, and The Songs of Leonard Cohen, a lone man with no vocal skills and a guitar, and yet this still managed to be too much to take in.
Whenever I think of this album, it immediately forces me to recall that Pablo Picasso painting of the old corpse-like man propped against the guitar, neck broken downward and eyes sullen against the dead blue tones. I don't think there's anything lonelier than the thought of a lone man with a guitar, and Cohen exemplifies this with a perfect set of 10 songs, nearly every lyric exceptional and quotable, every melody memorable. But more than the music, this album expresses the tale of a man both powerless and amazed by the nature of the world, and the resulting conflicts that occur from this circumstance.
Faith is a huge theme in The Songs of Leonard Cohen, but so is withdrawal, loss and the fear that all relationships end in discord. The sheer amount of dark themes explored on the album are mesmerizing, as it travels from empty docks of fantasies unfulfilled, to the deathbed of a master, onto two people attempting to depart on good terms at a park- resting suddenly in surrender and fear.
The dryness and sadness in the album has almost perverse undertones, while the messages are all buried and understated. Cohen's lyricisms are always the highlight of his music- and once you're attuned to his particular style he can become the meter stick for which you judge other lyrics.
What's beautiful is that he will always sacrafice style for substance, choosing simple rhyme schemes to get his message across- lyrics being read a page at a time and rarely repeated, he resolves many things with his careful metering and soft, cracked voice.
The melodies in this album are so simple that a single listen can reveal all intracacies, while the lyrics will remain mysterious forever. Occasionally a surge in the music will reveal something splendid or breathtaking, and those softspoken, unseen heights are the heart of the album- many verses spread out like pieces of wisdom- others as death wishes.
The intracate and delicate Suzanne is likely the most accessible song on the album. The acoustic guitar is plucked so delicately that it generates the sense of tiny waves rippling carefully against the posts of a dock. From the outset this album takes you to a very dreamlike world, full of poverty but beautiful in its honesty. When Cohen recites And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers it says more in that single lyric than most artists can accomplish in an entire song.
Suzanne takes you down
To her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
Being that Cohen was an accomplished writer before picking up a guitar, his lyrics read as majestically in paper as they do in practice.
One of my favorite verses in the album, though (There are many) comes at random in this one. Cohen's existential views on god are a driving force of his music, and in one verse he recalls the very concept of faith all too poetically
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said all men would be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them
After Suzanne comes to a close comes one of my two favorite Cohen songs. The first is Dress Rehearsal Rag on Songs of Love and Hate, and the second is the brilliantly dark Master Song, a cascading guitar and sparse vocals drawing up scenes of empty prison chambers and labored deathbeds.
Within the inner reaches of this song is an articulate description of a relationship gone abandoned, drawn up as a dog long abandoned by his master, as a student failing to be remembered by a teacher- and the contrast is heartbreaking.
I believe that you heard your master sing
when I was sick in bed.
I suppose that he told you everything
that I keep locked away in my head.
Your master took you travelling,
well at least that's what you said.
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread?
What has always impressed me about this song is that even at its lowest point it remains affixed to its downward spiral, unflinching. The effect is dry and empty, but poetic, and in the end it comes off as one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard in its confessional honesty.
Then I think you're playing far too rough
for a lady who's been to the moon;
I've lain by this window long enough
to get used to an empty room.
One thing the listener has to understand about Songs of Leonard Cohen is that a writer would enjoy this album a lot more than a musician. The music is always the afterthought, likely written to match the metering of the poem, and that's unique because those high, almost operatic crescendos occur under one man's breath and the aforementioned guitar.
Winter Lady is another song that must not be taken for granted, being almost pyschadelic- and the focus on texture and lyrics isn't sacraficed despite the fact that the subject matter is much lighter. The words flow like the haze of dreams into the catharctic Stranger Song which is an intense shackle of emotion and a spindly tale of trust gone wrong.
"Let's meet tomorrow if you choose
upon the shore, beneath the bridge
that they are building on some endless river"
Then he leaves the platform
for the sleeping car that's warm
You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter
And it comes to you, he never was a stranger
And you say ok the bridge or someplace later.
From here things lighten up a bit, and Sisters of Mercy twirl things into a much lighter fare, almost endearing and slightly funny.
When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon.
Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon.
And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.
So Long Marianne is a more traditional song, with chugging guitar and swirling spiderwebs of lyrics, while Teachers has Cohen grasping into the music like a southern bandit sneaking cross the border and singing viciously of something too vague to make sense.
One morning I woke up alone,
the hospital and the nurses gone.
Have I carved enough my Lord?
Child, you are a bone.
I ate and ate and ate,
no I did not miss a plate, well
How much do these suppers cost?
We'll take it out in hate.
Another of my favorites is the album closer, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, a truly sad song and an ideal ending to a beautiful set. This song tells the tale of a love/hate relationship and the tragic results that ensue. This also has within it one of the greatest verses I believe I have ever heard in music, a comic and slightly saddening story:
I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit.
Then he wrote himself a prescription,
and your name was mentioned in it!
Then he locked himself in a library shelf
with the details of our honeymoon,
and I hear from the nurse that he's gotten much worse
and his practice is all in a ruin.
Much like Cohen's background, his music exemplified an era of rock stars and free love with a more contemplative, introspective and personal feel. Probably. I wasn't alive back then; however I can't imagine Cohen not being a black sheep in this era as he was in that era. Although he never had huge success, his cult success with critics, writers and musicians is largely a part of this lone album (Though many songs in his body of work are equally impressive).
The album cover is too modest to suggest anything other than sincerity. A not-too-young man not striking a pose of attitude, rather merely staring into the camera with combed hair and a nice suit and not once suggesting anything that isn't; which is rare for him. The Songs of Leonard Cohen is an album for low times, or quiet times, or people who lay in bed staring at their roof waiting for something to happen at 3 AM.
It is locked in perpetual frost, a catharctic, dirty, and politely unapologetic album that knows its limits and breaks them; it's a suspended message of hope and belief that probably remains as unshaken and unchanged as the day it was recorded. All characters seem to fall from grace eventually, and come back knowing more than they did before.
Recommended Tracks:
1- Suzanne
2- Master Song
4- Stranger Song
6- So Long, Marianne
10- One of Us Cannot Be Wrong
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