The great man may be dead but his music lives on. Such a line could apply to a hundred artists, but it fits perfectly to Leonard Cohen, just as his famous fedora hat sat perfectly on his distinctive head!
Cohen fans will be delighted to know there is yet another posthumous album from the legend of the inventive line! Thanks for the Dance has been released three years after his death and provides yet another astonishing self-tribute to the Canadian poet/singer.
And poetry it certainly is. How about this opening verse to “The Nights of Santiago”, a song which is so Leonard Cohen you wonder why he waited so long:
She said she was a maiden
That wasn’t what I heard
For the sake of conversation
I took her at her word
The lights went out behind us
The fireflies undressed
The broken sidewalk ended
I touched her sleeping breasts
They opened to me urgently
Like lilies from the dead
Behind the fine embroidery
Her nipples rose like bread
Then I took off my neck-tie
And she took off her dress
My belt and pistol set aside
We tore away the rest
The song – by “the man of a thousand lovers” - reflects on a sexual relationship with a married woman. The punch line comes, not in those consuming opening lines, but in the closing verse where the legendary philanderer openly challenges the listener on the morality of life:
And yes she lied about it all
To her children and her husband
You were born to judge the world
Forgive me but I wasn’t
It leaves one to imagine the thoughts going through the mind of someone reflecting a diminishing life. For this was an album from recordings made in Leonard’s closing days.
The first tracks were released 19 days before his death in November 2016 on the album You Want it Darker, put together by his son Adam Cohen.
Leonard laid the vocals and Adam did the rest. He enlisted collaborators from his father’s musical life, including the legendary Spanish guitarist Javier Mas, who sat stage-left of Leonard on his final global tours of the 21st century. Add another legendary musician, Daniel Lanois, producer of Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris, plus stars like Beck (guitar, jew’s harp) and old flame Jennifer Warner (backing vocals).
Speaking of past loves, the title track “Thanks For The Dance” was in fact a song he gave to Anjani Thomas for inclusion in her 2006 album Blue Alert. Thomas, a long-time backing singer to Cohen, sings in the first person. Leonard does not.
She says:
There’s a rose in my hair
My shoulders are bare
I’ve been wearing this costume forever
He sings, ten years later:
There’s a rose in your hair
Your shoulders are bare
You’ve been wearing this costume forever
More tellingly.
She says:
Thanks for the dance
And the baby I carried
It was almost a daughter or a son
He sings, ten years later:
Thanks for the dance
And the baby you carried
It was almost the daughter or a son
So Leonard Cohen!
Even more provocative - in this #MeToo age - comes with the opening track “Happens to the Heart” where Leonard is at his age-old poetical best:
Had a pussy in the kitchen
And a panther in the yard
In the prison of the gifted
I was friendly with the guards
So I never had to witness
What happens to the heart
The song delves into sexual politics with Cohen making judgement on past acquaintances, including - what the critics speculate - a disgraced former Zen master:
No fable here, no lesson
No singing meadowlark
Just a filthy beggar guessing
As one might expect, there are connotations to earlier works. “It’s Torn” has a resemblance to “Anthem” (“There’s a Crack In Everything”) in rhythm and in verse:
There’s silt on your ankles
And sand on your feet
The river too shallow
The ocean too deep
“Listen to the Hummingbird” has Adam Cohen adding the piano to father Leonard’s recital, or, indeed, final instruction:
Listen to the Hummingbird
Whose wings you cannot see
Listen to the Hummingbird
Don’t listen to me
What is remarkable about this release is the familiarity the famous baritone voice has to recordings he made on albums as remote as Ten New Songs (2001) or even I’m Your Man (1988). His declining years did not damage the voice, given that during these recordings, Leonard was so ill that he required constant medical attention in the studio. This is not unheard of. The likes of David Bowie and Prince were, after all, intent on leaving some of their best to the very end.
Leonard has done just that. There will be no death of the ladies’ man!
Paul Cutler
Editor Crossroads – Americana Music Appreciation