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Between "Recent Songs" and "Various Positions" five years pass: it's a considerable amount of time, and in the meantime, the landscape around Leonard Cohen has profoundly changed: we are in 1984, and "thanks" to the thematic channel MTV that appeared three years earlier, contemporary popular music, in the collective imagination, is beginning to become more about appearance and less about essence; characters are being imposed on an audience increasingly framed as a flock to lead and mold, becoming more and more divas, more models and icons in the most frivolous meanings of these terms and increasingly less artists; the artistic level of mainstream pop suffers a vertical collapse, from which it would never recover, gradually worsening into a maelstrom with no way out. Someone like Leonard Cohen really fits little with this new order of things; he has never been one to stand out on screen, always allowing his music to speak for itself: by avoiding artificial rock star poses and always remaining a correct, consistent artist faithful to himself and his principles, he has managed to become a cult figure, a guiding star for those who want to orient themselves in skies different from the one polluted by the smog and artificial lights of the anti-music imposed by the system, but in 1984 this is no longer enough: "Look, Leonard, we know you're great, but we don't know if you're any good" is what he hears from the Columbia executives when he returns to the studio to follow up the masterpiece "Recent Songs."
Despite the senseless and obtuse ostracism of a musical establishment increasingly deaf and blind to music understood as an art form and not as a consumer product, "Various Positions" is Leonard Cohen's pop album par excellence: the turn that had already been attempted and partially failed seven years earlier with "Death Of A Ladie’s Man" is perfectly achieved here, thanks in part to the help of his friend producer John Lissauer, crucial with his contribution as arranger and keyboardist, and Jennifer Warnes, an increasingly important and defining presence, who is even credited as co-vocalist alongside Cohen himself. As the title suggests, the album is undoubtedly the most varied and eclectic in the songwriter's career: jazz, country, folk, and gospel influences are grafted onto a pop matrix, the atmospheres are lighter and more relaxed, more easily assimilated compared to those of "Recent Songs", and even this underlying simplicity contributes to making "Various Positions" a repository of unforgettable songs: thinking of Leonard Cohen one cannot help but think of "Hallelujah", an anthem of faith, love, and music. This song has been heavily used, in many cases outright abused, much to Cohen's displeasure, but for me the true "Hallelujah" remains the original: clear, joyful, serene, and not melodramatic at all, recited more than sung as befits such poetry, with the choristers, among whom the debutante Anjani Thomas stands out, intoning what is perhaps the most famous gospel chorus in contemporary popular music: practically full perfection achieved through style, measure, and inspiration, this is the original "Hallelujah", and this is the extreme synthesis of all "Various Positions", which boasts four other celebrated pillars of Leonard Cohen's repertoire: "Dance Me To The End Of Love", a tango that in its passionate theatricality places love as the last bastion against the barbarity of the human race, immortalized in all its essence in "Cohen Live" from 1993, the seductive love song "Coming Back To You" in which the poet, with a voice already slightly more hoarse than at the beginning, delivers an interpretation worthy of a great crooner, and the two tracks in which Jennifer Warnes' contribution is most evident: the intimate "Night Comes On", clothed in a delicate and dreamy atmosphere by John Lissauer's synthesizers, and the concluding "If It Be Your Will", a poignant yet liberating ballad, of simple and disarming beauty, where instead the supporting arrangements are more subdued compared to the rest of the album, leaving the stage to the voices of Leonard and Jennifer, in their second true duet after "The Smokey Life", accompanied by an acoustic guitar with a flamenco flavor.
In addition to these milestones, "Recent Songs" offers other pleasant surprises, tracks perhaps "minor" in an absolute sense but which well complete a concise and direct album, perfectly structured and virtually free of weak points: the dry and elusive "Hunter's Lullaby", a bitter portrait of a suicide, the hypnotic and tormented "The Law", embellished by the fascinating counterpoint of Jennifer Warnes, centered on the biblical concept of an implacable and inescapable divine law, and especially what to me is one of the most underrated songs in our repertoire: "The Captain": a very successful up-tempo country-western, with a prominent violin, with an easy and immediate melody, which behind its apparent carefreeness and disengagement hides a wonderful text, an ironic and poignant metaphor on the senselessness of wars, with references to the history of the Jewish people and a not too veiled satire on Yankie imperialism.
As Freddie Mercury rightly asserted, one must also know how to change and renew oneself if one wishes to continue being credible artists and not remain trapped in one's own clichés and become parodies of oneself, increasingly stilted and laughable as the years go by: now, good Freddie in his evolution has often lost his essence and could not avoid some falls of style, but Leonard Cohen did; he understood how to read the spirit of his times each time, continuing to renew himself with the same underlying message, the same honesty, the same lack of ulterior motives that are not about uniting music and poetry, trying to do it each time in the best way possible; this is Leonard Cohen, this is "Various Positions".
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Dance Me to the End of Love (04:40)
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
03 The Law (04:28)
How many times did you call me
And I knew it was late
I left everybody
But I never went straight
I don't claim to be guilty
But I do understand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
Now my heart's like a blister
From doing what I do
If the moon has a sister
It's got to be you
I'm going to miss you forever
Tho' it's not what I planned
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
Now the deal has been dirty
Since dirty began
I'm not asking for mercy
Not from the man
You just don't ask for mercy
While you're still on the stand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
I don't claim to be guilty
Guilty's too grand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
That's all I can say, baby
That's all I can say
It wasn't for nothing
That they put me away
I fell with my angel
Down the chain of command
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand
05 Hallelujah (04:39)
Baby, I've been here before
I know this room, I walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
Yeah, and I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But listen, Love, love is not some kind of victory march
No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
Ah, but now, you never show it me, do ya
Ah, but I remember, yeah, when I moved in you
And the holy dove, she was moving too
Yes, and every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Maybe there's a God above
As for me, all I ever seem to learn from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya
Ah, but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight
It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light
No, it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come all this way to fool ya
Yeah, and even though it all went wrong
I'll stand, right here, before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
06 The Captain (04:10)
Now the Captain called me to his bed
He fumbled for my hand
"Take these silver bars," he said
"I'm giving you command."
"Command of what, there's no one here
There's only you and me --
All the rest are dead or in retreat
Or with the enemy."
"Complain, complain, that's all you've done
Ever since we lost
If it's not the Crucifixion
Then it's the Holocaust."
"May Christ have mercy on your soul
For making such a joke
Amid these hearts that burn like coal
And the flesh that rose like smoke."
"I know that you have suffered, lad,
But suffer this awhile:
Whatever makes a soldier sad
Will make a killer smile."
"I'm leaving, Captain, I must go
There's blood upon your hand
But tell me, Captain, if you know
Of a decent place to stand."
"There is no decent place to stand
In a massacre;
But if a woman take your hand
Go and stand with her."
"I left a wife in Tennessee
And a baby in Saigon --
I risked my life, but not to hear
Some country-western song."
"Ah but if you cannot raise your love
To a very high degree,
Then you're just the man I've been thinking of --
So come and stand with me."
"Your standing days are done," I cried,
"You'll rally me no more.
I don't even know what side
We fought on, or what for."
"I'm on the side that's always lost
Against the side of Heaven
I'm on the side of Snake-eyes tossed
Against the side of Seven.
And I've read the Bill of Human Rights
And some of it was true
But there wasn't any burden left
So I'm laying it on you."
Now the Captain he was dying
But the Captain wasn't hurt
The silver bars were in my hand
pinned them to my shirt.
07 Hunter's Lullaby (02:26)
Your father's gone a-hunting
He's deep in the forest so wild
And he cannot take his wife with him
He cannot take his child
Your father's gone a-hunting
In the quicksand and the clay
And a woman cannot follow him
Although she knows the way
Your father's gone a-hunting
Through the silver and the glass
Where only greed can enter
But spirit, spirit cannot pass
Your father's gone a-hunting
For the beast we'll never cannot bind
And he leaves a baby sleeping
And his blessings all behind
Your father's gone a-hunting
And he's lost his lucky charm
And he's lost the guardian heart
That keeps the hunter from the harm
Your father's gone a-hunting
He asked me to say goodbye
And he warned me not to stop him
I wouldn't, I wouldn't even try
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