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LEONARD COHEN - Dear Heather

Thu 04 Nov 2004

Stocki reviews the new Cohen album and finds romance and the spiritual beautifully entwined...

LEONARD COHEN – Dear Heather

Leonard Cohen has always been the cerebral rock star. After all, he was a novelist and poet first only turning to song to sell more product. Yet the mind is not Cohen’s ultimate concern. He is all about the sensuality of heart and ardour of soul. This is the Canadian’s eleventh album and is a whole lot less wordy than normal. When you consider that he suggested he had written fifty verses for some of the songs on 1992’s The Future and that there are only five lines to the title track on this one suggests that our jewish friend's time in the hills of California doing Zen Buddhist meditation has led to economy of word.

Another way that the spiritual pilgrimage of his sixties has influenced this work is the repetitive nature of some of the songs. The central piece here is Villanelle For Our Time which repeats the reflections of Frank Scott for almost six minutes. With any other artist the over use of the key lines “from bitter searching of the heart/ We rise to play a greater part” would have grown wearisome but this is where Cohen’s voice becomes to quote the Gospel writers, “as one having authority and not as the scribes.” (note for the spiritual squeamish; this is poetic licence with no theological intent!). By its’ end your soul is ready to refurbish your life; you want to give your soul a darn good thrashing, make it clean and start all over to make your mark across the world.

Spiritual concerns are evident throughout and the album is topped and tailed by questions of love’s stamina to hold out in a world that must weary it beyond measure. In Lord Byron’s Go No More A Roving there is suggestion it needs a breather and the penultimate track The Faith, nicked from a Quebec folk song, asks “oh love, aren’t you tired yet?” Of course a recent event that must have left love short of breath was 9/11 and Cohen gives it a short reflection leaving a few hints at answers (Some people say/It’s what we deserve/For sins against g¬_d/For crimes in the world) as he asks why but in the end he is happy to get on with it in the confusion, refusing conclusions (I wouldn’t know/I’m just holding the fort/Since the day/they wounded New York).

You do always come back to Cohen’s voice and early reviews have questioned its strength of power. Maybe he is speaking more and singing less but this voice is a powerful instrument and this seventy year old sings when asking for a cup of coffee. It has profound spiritual impact. Goodness what a preacher he would have made! It is also an astonishingly sensual sound and the sexiest pensioner in the world admits on Because Of that “Because of a few songs/Wherein I spoke of their mystery/Women have been/Exceptionally kind to my old age.” I bet they have Leonard!

It is however in the romantic department where the album makes its’ one failure. The title track is another exercise in repetition. This time it is only five lines about Heather’s “legs all white from the winter”. He even descends into spelling out white and winter. It is tedious and in truth pathetic. Maybe an attempt at a little whimsy and humour. Failed!

As on 2001’s Ten New Songs Cohen’s lack of vocal range is supplemented by the singing of Sharon Robinson and Anjani Thomas. When they throw another hue across songs like Villanelle For Our Time there are no doubts though when they take stretches on their own you are not so sure but when they light up the epiphany of Morning Glory you stop quibbling.

Like Cohen himself his music is tailored and tasteful, handsome on the outside and tender of soul within. Earthly pleasure and heavenly desire rarely compliment each other so well.

http://www.stocki.ni.org/news/items/item-500.phtml

Overall, I enjoyed this one, Tchocolatl.

I smiled and then laughed in agreement with this section:

With any other artist the over use of the key lines “from bitter searching of the heart/ We rise to play a greater part” would have grown wearisome but this is where Cohen’s voice becomes to quote the Gospel writers, “as one having authority and not as the scribes.” (note for the spiritual squeamish; this is poetic licence with no theological intent!). By its’ end your soul is ready to refurbish your life; you want to give your soul a darn good thrashing, make it clean and start all over to make your mark across the world.

Yeaz, Elizabeth, I guess it fits for almost his entire work, also.

For me, my feelings are in accordance with this :

"You do always come back to Cohen’s voice and early reviews have questioned its strength of power. Maybe he is speaking more and singing less but this voice is a powerful instrument and this seventy year old sings when asking for a cup of coffee."

With his voice he can pass very deep, very strong emotions (I have the impression his body is a kind of support of a great energy that must have been difficult for him to carry and used at some times in his life) then more "technical" voices that may sing according to the standards but are just technical - no heat in it, no... (please fill the empty space with a word of you choice) no nothing. This may sound unfair for them, but no, because I think that he has a very unusual gift. Thanks to him to have accepted it to the end. (I still waiting for the next one to come !! !! !! )

For the rest of the review (and all reviews), I find that it is interesting to see how the same object is seen differently by different people and that the strongest the ideas of the person are, the strongest this or that in a song or the CD is going under his or her skin.

Pico Iyer in his very pretty liner note went like this:

"It’s also the easiest thing to underestimate, or look past" (transparency)
"I can imagine a music critic rejoicing in the way this record--quite literally, a record of a life, a day--opens up the palette to admit new colors; but the exegete will be confounded by the fact that the words just stand there, giving up nothing but themselves. There’s no spin on them, no gloss."

I think that he was lured by the aspect of these "series of objects lined up on a table, all precisely rounded, like brightly colored balls, entire in themselves and lucid, but not pointing to anything beyond themselves. Offerings for a Sunday morning, you could say, at home in the sun." that struck him, first.

As far as I know now, the balls are going boing rebounding in all directions. Watch out!!!

Whoops, Tchocolatl ~ When I said laughed in agreement, I didn't mean to isolate that as the only portion I agreed with. I just enjoyed the humour of it, being used to not say something negative, but positive, about Leonard and his singing.

Absolutely, I agree with your selection ! The " . . . cup of coffee" really made it . Your added note, "I have the impression his body is a kind of support of a great energy that must have been difficult for him to carry and used at some times in his life" is an excellent expression of the reality we know as Leonard Cohen.

Yeah, Pico's analogy sure didn't hold true when it came to the vast array of critiques on this album . However, the words do still stand there, unglossed and unadorned.

~ Lizzy

"Whoops, Tchocolatl ~ When I said laughed in agreement, I didn't mean to isolate that as the only portion I agreed with. I just enjoyed the humour of it, being used to not say something negative, but positive, about Leonard and his singing."

I understood it that way Elizabeth, maybe I was osbcure.

"However, the words do still stand there, unglossed and unadorned. "

I think about them like this : Zen on the outside Jewish inside.

Critics, yes, but I was thinking also about the comments made by the fans. It is amazing. More than ever you can see the personnality of the person through the mirrors that can be Leonard Cohen's songs. For me it reveals the power of the songs to touch people's selves

I am even thinking that it could bring to consciousness some unconscious contents. Hum...

I was taking your comment to mean strictly critics, but you're right that it extends to fans, as well. We sure don't dare 'going there,' however .

I like this image: "Zen on the outside Jewish inside". It seems you may have nailed it.

~ Lizzy

Thanks. You know, this critic in particular, he is pleased with the clean look of the man and did not like the only song his moral is not in accordance with. Hypnotizing the maid, you know. And particularly if Tom.d.Stiller is right regarding Heather (and I think he is. well at some layer of the meanings, ).

I like the way the critic has picked up on a possible theme through the album - whether love still has the stamina to get us through. I shall bear this in mind next time I listen.

I'm also glad they picked up on the repetition of "Through bitter searching of the heart/We rise to play a greater part". Tchocolatl, you said what a great preacher Leonard would have made. I think in Vilanelle Leonard is almost preaching. Those two lines form the theme of the sermon, and each time he returns to it the inflection and emphasis is slightly different, pointing to yet another possible interpretation.

Yes Linmag I continue to think this, but he is "just" a folk singer and maybe he can do more in term of - comforting? - like this than he would have done by being a jewish preacher or a zen monk. I think so.

For Villanelle, it could not be "worst" than Hallelujah. Not listening carefully to the lyrics, one could think : !ah!this is the local Church choir that sign with all the possible faith someone can have".

Suzanne will always be a religious (mean : "to reliate". (myself with the Great Whole which is all Beauty,Love and Wisdom)) song to me.

What can he do? He can not denied his background, this man.