Leonard Cohen
Recent Songs

THE REVIEW

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.