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On the website of "Le Devoir", newspaper from Québec, you can now listen to "Banjo", the song without a banjo, but with a cornet, played by Neil Larsen..

Enjoy!

http://www.ledevoir.com/culture/musique ... -habillees

That. Is. Not. As. Cool. As. THEY. Might. Think.

6 days till release (in several European countries). 6 songs left.

// Nothing personal, Chris Thanks for the link.

Dino Soldo plays all the instruments except cornet (yes, it's Neil Larsen who plays that instrument).
Dino also produced and engineered this track.
Sharon Robinson is the female vocalist.

The music reminds me of "My Oh My" a song Leonard sang while on tour.

Listened to a few seconds but saving listening to it in full until I have the album in my hands next Friday

Beautiful! Thanks swisschris!

Thanks for the link, swisschris
and thanks for the info, Jarkko

---Arlene

Lyrics written down and posted at FB by Gordana Stupar.

There's something that I'm watching
Means a lot to me
There's something that I'm watching
Means a lot to me

It's a broken benjo bobbing
On the dark infested sea
It's a broken benjo bobbing
On the dark infested sea

Don't know how it got there
Maybe taken by the wave
Don't know how it got there
Probably taken by the wave

Of the someones shoulder
Or out of someones grave
Of the someones shoulder
Or of the someones grave

It's coming for me darling
No matter where I go
It's coming for me darling
No matter where I go

Its duty is to harm me
My duty is to know
Its duty is to harm me
My duty is to know

There is something that I'm watching
Means a lot to me
There is something that I'm watching
Means a lot to me

It's a broken benjo bobbing
On the dark infested sea
It's a broken benjo bobbing
On the dark infested sea

Those lyrics don't do much for me. There's no meat there.

Leonard must have written the song for vegetarians!

"A Lazy Bastard Living in a Following Thesis"! Here's a Google Translate version of the French article in English:

Stevie Wonder-room on the second floor of the House of jazz, just above the Astral, had been arranged for the occasion. From both sides, large panel displays the words of the ten new songs, a song by the panel. "Welcome to the temporary chapel of Leonard Cohen," said André Ménard, and then, disciple all the host, he invited Jaseux to go talk in the room next door, and others, especially journalists, to live the advent of the new album of Leonard Cohen in meditation right thing.

I wondered what the Field Commander Cohen, Leonard man, the humble servant of infinite desire, fedora gangster of love slightly to the side as on the cover of Old Ideas, this looks staged , this religiosity. It amuses no doubt, as it amuses her to talk about himself in third person in the song that opens this album of the 12th Great Work, Going Home, "I love to speak with Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepherd / He's a lazy bastard / Living in a following thesis [...] He Will speak words of wisdom / Like a wise man, a man of vision / Though He Knows He's really nothing / But the brief elaboration of a tube. " Leonard Cohen is certainly not the dupe of his own cult.

Critics took notes and copied large parts of words while listening, the other - radio programmers, people in the industry - has listened to reading, hands in his pockets. I reread them, there, my notes for Going Home. "Keyboard soft, delicate percussion. Return flights to female choirs Cohen. Beautiful solo strings. A little rumba. Smile in the voice of Leonard when he says "lazy bastard in a suit". "This brief and it says nothing about the excitement of the reunion. This voice will seek in the depths of oneself what one does not always find: our secret truths.

Commotion global

The embargo world around the disk is lifted on Friday. A priori, it seemed a little vain, the marketing stages, tapping private two songs revealed to two months apart (Show Me the First Place, and The Darkness), embargo under penalty of being hanged by the toes, lifting of embargo 11 days before the arrival in stores (January 31, you have time to line up). All for the songs? We could also talk about the ritual welcome return out of a hard major: the two previous Cohen - Ten New Songs in 2001, Dear Heather in 2004 - had landed without trumpets of Jericho, as it were in secret.

That is understood. Cohen's was in spite of himself, Leonard drives a bit of a stubborn, almost returning to the body defending the foreground, forced to re-enlist because dispossessed of his retirement nest egg by a rogue manager. Sharon Robinson's friend had taken care of everything, even music, Leonard had only to sing his beautiful and terrible words. They sounded very young, these discs, synthetic, Cohen's cheap, it looked like demos, the only happiness was to find our man, bruised but alive.

Context very different this time around: Old Ideas is the album of Cohen from the triumphant tours and global 2008, 2009, 2010. Shows extreme discretion in the instrumentation, celebration of a directory by the organic beauty of the arrangements, return of guitars and bass, tasteful universally welcomed. This means Going Home: the sound palpable textures finely textured, delicate and subtle way of dressing of recent shows. Basically, that's right, Old Ideas: old ideas that have the chic, a hundred times better dressed disk.

But listen. After Going Home, Amen shows up with his banjo shrouded echo (but is that a banjo?), The trumpet solo, the violin a little sad gypsy. Leonard asks the Almighty to him repeat his message, considering the horrors of the world, "When the filth of the butcher / Is washed in the blood of the lamb ..." The pace is slow, heavy step foxtrot in About the counterweight. Following Show Me the Place, which is known since the end of November: it is one of four songs whose music is signed Patrick Leonard, this musician-producer Curriculum long as your arm, who has worked with Madonna, Rod Stewart and ... Lara Fabian. Ding ding firefighters? Oh no, surprisingly. We have every reason to be suspicious, but to listen, honestly, he has composed glue Cohen.

Go on. The Darkness, you have already downloaded, surely. The accompaniment is very Dylan 90 years, live in the studio with the solo Hammond B-3, the slide riff and blues intertwined pickings. It would be a successful track record in other eras. A song that makes you want dark black to wiggle. Crazy about you, no doubt. Anyhow is more intimate, jazzy, piano-bar late night, a song of guys dropped, more whispered than sung "I Know You Have To hate me / But Could You hate me less?" Not the best of the disc, a unpredictable in the genre. Patrick Leonard's fault?

Crazy to Love You, with music from Anjani Thomas with Leonard Cohen returns folksinger first time: melody melodic guitar reads almost too Cohen-by-the-book. There is a line that kills: "I'm tired of Choosing desire ..." Come Healing revival hymn the case so it could be a Christmas song, the carpet of strings is a layer of freshly fallen snow: sweet prayer . Banjo I like immensely, very country gentleman in the genre, slide to the right acoustic guitar riff on the left, little waltz with gospel choirs veering to the end, that you dip your toes in Mississippi. The following Lullaby, a wonder, too, is in the same direction, the organ is church organ in the South, a small acoustic guitar arpeggio loop runs, the harmonica is stamped Nashville, you can listen on the legs from behind. Song of appeasement. "Sleep Baby Sleep / There's a morning to come / The wind in the trees / They're talking in tongues ..."

Surprise, the album ends with upbeat, Different Sides r'n'b is on the edge of rock'n'roll as a refusal to take the lead once again. "I want to leave it alone," chanted Leonard, in the same tone that mocked his "words of wisdom" from wise old man in Going Home. "You want to live Where The Suffering is / I want to get out of town / C'mon baby give me a kiss / Stop writing everything down ..." In 77 years, the great poet-songwriter has not always want to be the great poet-singer, and his words are gospel truth of office, to receive only good in the chapel that he built every disciple. But he still loves rhyming and his desire to dress nicely, even if only to better seduce. Leonard unrepentant. What to expect either side of a "lazy bastard in a suit"?

Juan wrote:The music reminds me of "My Oh My" a song Leonard sang while on tour.

My thought exactly!

This song is really good. Is a different song but the image is powerful and evocative. I really like it!

For me the song and mainly the 'broken banjo' is a powerful image and metaphor for the very own Death itself:

There's something that I'm watching,
Means a lot to me
Don't know how it got there
out of someones grave
It's coming for me darling
No matter where I go
Its duty is to harm me
My duty is to know

Para mí, la canción, en concreto el 'banjo roto' es una poderosa imágen y metáfora de la propia Muerte. Esta e3s mi traducción de la letra al español:

Estoy viendo algo que significa mucho para mí:
Es un banjo roto balanceándose sobre el mar oscuro e infectado.
No se cómo llegó ahí,
Tal vez guiado por una ola.
Vino del hombro de alguien
O tal vez salió de la tumba de alguien.
Viene a por mí, cariño,
No importa a donde yo vaya.
Su deber es hacerme daño,
Mi deber es saberlo.
Estoy viendo algo que significa mucho para mí,
Es un banjo roto balanceándose sobre el mar oscuro e infectado.