Leonard Cohen
Can't Forget

God save Kelley Lynch and all the swindlers who populate this lovely planet.

Until yesterday, Kelley was the dandy managing the hefty sum that Leonard Cohen stashed under his mattress to enjoy a serene and peaceful retirement.

Except one day Leonard discovers that Kelley is happily squandering that sum, accompanied by merry women and sailing through rivers of Moet and Chandon. Not even the mites have been left under the mattress: everything's cleaned out.

The poor Leonard, at the tender age of eighty, to avoid ending his days in poverty is forced to go back to work, the only one he has practiced since youth: composing songs and singing them with that voice that there's only Van Morrison before it, or maybe not.

In recent years, Leonard releases a ton of material that in other times he would have spread over two decades. It would be reasonable to think that the quality is lacking, also because the purpose is candidly stated: songs are needed to sell because not a shadow of money is left, and it is true that money doesn't buy happiness but basic necessities, yes; those nobody gives you, not even if your name is Leonard Cohen and you promise to perform at home in exchange for a crust of bread and a humble bed.

But it doesn't quite go that way, so much so that from such a turmoil a couple of studio albums come out – «Old Ideas» and «Popular Problems», both very beautiful – and even four live ones.

A few months ago, Leonard comes out with a new live album, «Can't Forget», and once again hits the mark.

«Can't Forget» is a spin-off of the live in Dublin published just at the end of 2014, a souvenir of the Grand Tour as the subtitle says, but at the same time it stands out, if only for the fact that there are no overlaps between the tracklists of the two works.

In fact, Leonard enriches the album by offering two unreleased tracks. One of which, «La Manic», is a classic of the Canadian popular tradition that Leonard sings wielding an implacable knife-grinder French, and the audience welcomes it with the enthusiasm usually reserved for «Suzanne» and «Joan Of Arc»: a spectacle that alone is worth the ticket price for those lucky enough to find themselves in Quebec City on December 2, 2012, but also the price of the album for all the others who have not had that same fortune.

And then there are more or less recent songs, and if you are looking for classics here you find “only” «Joan Of Arc». But the greatness of Leonard, after all, is his ability to give the dignity of the classic to any interpretation, so «I Can't Forget», «Light As The Breeze», and «Night Comes On» and every single note that comes from these grooves is a classic on par with «Joan Of Arc».

Accompanying the good Leonard is a group of trusted friends (those who don't clean you out under the mattress, so to speak), They are all worth listening to, but those lacking patience should at least listen to the sisters Charley and Hattie Webb, two angelic voices like you haven't heard since the days when Margo Timmins exhibited her talents with less parsimony: the wonder of «Joan Of Arc», on this occasion, is also their merit, mostly their merit one might dare say.

Paradoxically, it would be desirable for this album to sell little or nothing, thus forcing Leonard to scrape together some coin by writing and singing until the last of his days.