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Rating: In 2011 it can be stated with calm: Leonard Cohen is a great master of apparent transformation: "New Skin For The Old Ceremony," besides being the title of one of his albums, is an expression that perfectly synthesizes his musical journey: a kind of positive 'Gattopardismo', changing the surface while leaving the artistic content and cultural depth of his music intact. From the acoustic folk of his beginnings to the soul nuances of "In My Secret Life," passing through the electronics of "First We Take Manhattan" and "Democracy," the country-pop of "The Captain," the gospel of "Hallelujah," the swing of "I'm Your Man," and much more, but in 1977 they couldn't know that: to everyone, Cohen was the austere singer-songwriter of "Avalanche," "Suzanne," "The Stranger Song," "Who By Fire." His greatest hits was considered the most depressing album of all time, and according to some simpletons, his songs incited suicide. So when "Death Of A Ladies' Man" was released, his first radical transformation, both the public and critics were completely baffled.
"Death Of A Ladies' Man" was certainly not a perfect album, too conditioned by the overwhelming personality of producer Phil Spector and cloaked in such pompous arrangements sometimes really excessive and out of place, yet its bad reputation is largely undeserved: two masterpieces like "True Love Leaves No Traces" and "Paper Thin Hotel," plus at least 2-3 other excellent pieces, are enough to consider it more reasonably as a brave attempt to "refresh" his style, perhaps a bit naive and rash but still important and significant. After definitively and badly ending the relationship with Spector, Leonard Cohen takes a small step back with "Recent Songs": the more acoustic, melancholic, and introspective side of his music resurfaces strongly accompanied by a new stylistic search, much freer and more personal than the previous LP, which leads him closer to jazz, and to folk in a more ethnic and varied sense compared to the beginnings; another key aspect of "Recent Songs" is the presence of an extraordinary singer and songwriter, Leonard Cohen's backing vocalist since 1971, debuting here as the main secondary voice in a stable way: Jennifer Warnes, and her contribution will be fundamental.
"The Guests", the album's opening track presents a verse-chorus metric that repeats continuously, almost on the lines of "Joan Of Arc": the acoustic guitar is sparse and essential, the voice too, Jennifer Warnes' counter-chant and a timid gypsy violin add to the narration, and so it will be a bit throughout the album: poems, more intimate reflections and a bit gentler than in the past, accompanied by arrangements as sober as they are characteristic and fundamental to create the sound of this album, unique in Leonard Cohen's entire career.
Then it moves to "Humbled In Love", where a sound wall quite different from Phil Spector's reproposes itself, aiming to support the song rather than being the main structure, creating a hypnotic and looming atmosphere that underscores the faint black humor of the lyrics, and to the marvelous "Came So Far For Beauty", based on a simple piano melody, Cohen's voice is always that of a poet loaned to song but by itself, in this song, it manages to touch and move with its humanity and the depth conveyed in his words; sensations also found in "The Traitor", a delicate, sweet, and bitter introspection, among Cohen's lyrical peaks, concluded by a poignant cello solo.
In "Our Lady Of Solitude" one breathes an air of measured happiness and contemplation; drums and synthesizers stand out, giving a new skin to the poetics made of fusion between flesh and spirit so dear to this immense artist since "Suzanne," "The Window" is a love waltz as "So Long, Marianne" was and as "Take This Waltz" will be, of which it is a perfect connecting ring; Jennifer Warnes is a very discreet presence, almost in the background, but when she comes on stage with her angelic voice, chills are guaranteed.
Regarding the blonde singer from Seattle, in "Recent Songs" she secures a key role in "The Smokey Life", where she duets with Leonard Cohen: the two voices, so different from each other, complement each other, intertwine like Yin and Yang, the song is melancholic, talks about the end of a love; it is changeable, sometimes shadowy and sometimes sweet, outlined by a hypnotic synthesizer, and contrasts or rather accompanies the last emotion of the album, what for me is the highest point of "Recent Songs" and perhaps of Cohen's whole career: "Ballad Of The Absent Mare": everything in this song takes on monumental proportions: Leonard's voice, which perhaps has never sung like this before, with such intensity and participation, with such direct emotional involvement and personal, the brass of a Mexican serenade, peeking especially at the end with their poignant and cinematic melody, the images evoked in the text, a lost love that takes on the dimensions of a tragedy, in front of which nothing can be done but resign, with a lump in the throat and a sense of resignation and despair perfectly palpable beneath the skin, barely hidden by the grandeur of the melody.
Now, perhaps it's a matter of personal taste, mine may be a debatable and criticizable statement, but in my opinion, "Recent Songs" is the best Leonard Cohen has ever been: as shown by the cover portrait, the artist begins to show his first gray hair, and this is the central point of his career, the album of his definitive maturity: Cohen is no longer the austere and iconic folksinger of the late '60s, and he is not yet the genius of singer-songwriter pop of "Various Positions," here he is an artist who has found his perfect balance on all levels, "Recent Songs" is an album of pure emotion, in the lyrics direct engagement prevails over observation, deep feelings and streams of consciousness emerge, musically it takes a niche all its own, it is not comparable to any other of his albums, neither previous nor later, the musical pursuit here is still subordinate to the inner pursuit from which the lyrics spring, this is the fundamental difference between "Death Of A Ladies' Man" and "Recent Songs," and which makes the latter a masterpiece, though underestimated, for me the greatest in the career of the Canadian singer-songwriter.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Guests (06:39)
One by one the guests arrive
The guests are coming through
The open-hearted many
The broken-hearted few
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
And those who dance, begin to dance
Those who weap, begin
And welcome, welcome cries of voice
Let all my guests come in
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
And all goes stumbling through that house
In lonely secrecy
Saying do reveal yourself
or why has thou forsaken me
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
All at once the tortures flare
The inner door flies open
One by one they enter there
in every style of passion
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
And here they take their sweet repast
Wild house and grounds resolve
And one by one the guests are cast beyond the garden wall
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
For those who dance, begin to dance
Those who weap, begin
Those who earnestly are lost
are lost, and lost begin
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
One by one the guests arrive
The guests are coming through
The broken-hearted many
The open-hearted few
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows where the wine is flowing
Oh love, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
I need you now
03 The Window (05:55)
Why do you stand by the window
Abandoned to beauty and pride
The thorn of the night in your bosom
The spear of the age in your side
Lost in the rages of fragrance
Lost in the rags of remorse
Lost in the waves of a sickness
That loosens the high silver nerves
Oh chosen love, Oh frozen love
Oh tangle of matter and ghost
Oh darling of angels, demons and saints
And the whole broken-hearted host
Gentle this soul
And come forth from the cloud of unknowing
And kiss the cheek of the moon
The New Jerusalem glowing
Why tarry all night in the ruin
And leave no word of discomfort
And leave no observer to mourn
But climb on your tears and be silent
Like a rose on its ladder of thorns
Oh chosen love, Oh frozen love...
Then lay your rose on the fire
The fire give up to the sun
The sun give over to splendour
In the arms of the high holy one
For the holy one dreams of a letter
Dreams of a letter's death
Oh bless thee continuous stutter
Of the word being made into flesh
Oh chosen love, Oh frozen love...
Gentle this soul
04 Came So Far for Beauty (04:03)
I came so far for beauty left
so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
I thought I'd be rewarded
For such a lonely choice
And surely she would answer
To such a very hopeless voice
I practiced on my sainthood
I gave to one and all
But the rumours of my virtue
They moved her not at all
I changed my style to silver
I changed my clothes to black
And where I would surrender
Now I would attack
I stormed the old casino
For the money and the flesh
And I myself decided
What was rotten and what was fresh
And men to do my bidding
And broken bones to teach
The value of my pardon
The shadow of my reach
But no, I could not touch her
With such a heavy hand
Her star beyond my order
Her nakedness unmanned
I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
05 The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien errant) (04:40)
(by Antoine Gerin-Lajoie)
Un Canadien Errant
Banni de ses foyers,
Parcourait en pleurant
Des pays étrangers.
Parcourait en pleurant
Des pays étrangers.
Un jour, triste et pensif,
Assis au bord des flots,
Au courant fugitif
Il adressa ces mots:
Au courant fugitif
Il adressa ces mots:
"Si tu vois mon pays,
Mon pays malheureux,
Va dire a mes amis
Que je me souviens d'eux.
Va dire à mes amis
Que je me souviens d'eux.
O jours si pleins d'appas,
Vous êtes disparus...
Et ma patrie, helas!
Je ne la verrai plus.
Et ma patrie, helas!
Je ne la verrai plus.
[A wandering Canadian,
banned from his hearths,
travelled while crying
in foreign lands.
travelled while crying
in foreign lands.
One day, sad and pensive,
sitting by the flowing waters,
to the fleeing current
he addressed these words:
to the fleeing current
he addressed these words:
If you see my country,
my unhappy country,
go tell my friends
that I remember them.
go tell my friends
that I remember them.
O days so full of charms,
you have vanished...
And my native land, alas!
I will see it no more.
And my native land, alas!
I will see it no more.]
06 The Traitor (06:14)
Now the Swan it floated on the English river
Ah the Rose of High Romance it opened wide
A sun tanned woman yearned me through the summer
and the judges watched us from the other side
I told my mother "Mother I must leave you
preserve my room but do not shed a tear
Should rumour of a shabby ending reach you
it was half my fault and half the atmosphere"
But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever
and the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame
She said at last I was her finest lover
and if she withered I would be to blame
The judges said you missed it by a fraction
rise up and brace your troops for the attack
Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action
Oh see the men of action falling back
But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still
My falsity had stung me like a hornet
The poison sank and it paralysed my will
I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
that they had been deserted from above
So on battlefields from here to Barcelona
I'm listed with the enemies of love
And long ago she said "I must be leaving,
Ah but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I'm sleeping
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan"
So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there -- I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
and people call me traitor to my face
08 The Gypsy's Wife (05:12)
And where, where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight
I've heard all the wild reports, they can't be right
But whose head is this she's dancing with on the threshing floor
whose darkness deepens in her arms a little more
And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?
Where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?
Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafe
A ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligee
She says, "My body is the light, my body is the way"
I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride's bouquet
And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?...
Too early for the rainbow, too early for the dove
These are the final days, this is the darkness, this is the flood
And there is no man or woman who can't be touched
But you who come between them will be judged
And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?...
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