If you're inclined to call Cohen's music depressing because of it's ultra mellow sound then I'm probably not addressing you with this text. If you appreciate music on such a shallow, upbeat and fluffy of subject matter equates to good while slow, occasionally mournful and broad of content means bad, level then there's no hope for you anyway. I'd take songwriting with depth any day of the week over tossed off formulaic anthems built around a beat. Leonard has made a career out of taking his time with albums and won an adoring following who appreciate the care and attention to detail. He's given us a catalogue that, whilst generally slow, heavy duty and occasionally ponderous in tone, pushes the same emotional reflexes sparked by all the best poetry, drama and literature; heartache, familiarity, suspense, regret, humour, love, sorrow and wonder. That said, it's a hard sell to convince a non believer to kill the cliche when the opening track here deals with Leonard's own mortality. He meditates on "going home without my sorrow, going home sometime tomorrow, going home without this costume that I wore". It's a gorgeous opener and while clearly not a joyous subject matter, Leonard appears to have a resigned smile on his face and even sounds prepared to welcome the release of his "burden".The sound on that opening number utilises a couple of other contentious elements around Leonard's production methods over the past 25 or so years. Firstly there's that keyboard and rhythm that some have likened to the cheapest Casio device with dialled-in presets you'd buy for an 8 year old. I will admit that there have been odd tracks over that period where that insult isn't a million miles away from fact but, in his defence, he's made a joke of the mechanical absurdity of it in concert (just check his exquisite comic timing and dry sense of fun on the 'Live In London' film) and I can't think of a single track that suffers from such a bold arrangement decision. I'd bet he's always known exactly what he's doing; presenting the composers own versions of his songs in such basic, budget friendly settings so to leave room for re-interpretation and fleshing out by others. It's worked too, just look what eventually happened to 'Hallelujah', both stripped back and vamped up by different performers resulting in both critical and commercial success. Besides, look back at his earliest recordings and it becomes clear that Leonard has always done this; those almost toneless nylon guitar strings on his first records also sounding like the instrument of a novice.
He's also been questioned over his more frequent use of female vocalists on albums, a tendency that has stepped up a little on the last three records. It's not uncommon for Leonard's ladies to take a whole verse without his participation while the man himself delivers in a style increasingly akin to a growling mantra. Again though, I'd argue that he has always done this and it often suits Leonard's core subject matter perfectly. Aside from the obvious benefit of a contrasting vocal texture to Leonard's low rasp limited in scale, the man loves to dig around the nuts and bolts of male and female co-existence. Here too I'd refer you back to his earliest recordings; think about 'So Long Marianne', a soothing female presence is never too far from Cohen's work, or indeed life! He simply knows how to play to his strengths, which in a couplet is lyrical composition, whilst retaining a keen awareness of his own musical limitations.
Still this album will stand out in the long run as a major part of his catalogue (a fairly cheap bit of praise really for if you look at his back catalogue it emerges that Cohen has never really suffered any real dip in form) because of a section of songs in the middle that more than any time since the 1970s recall his gentle guitar strumming sound. It's subtle at first, 'Darkness' introduces the section acoustically before opening out with keys and drums into a devastating study on living through end times. Next track and Leonard may be singing over soft electric keys but it's with a flare that recalls some of the drunken characterisation he brought to the table on 'New Skin For The Old Ceremony'. That song, 'Anyhow', is dripping with delightfully desperate lines like "even though you have to hate me could you hate me less?" Still it stands as a mere warm up for the knock out blow that is 'Crazy To Love You', a song on which he sings like he did right back at the start of his career over nothing more than a picked acoustic guitar pattern. In doing so is he trying to bring his catalogue full circle? If that is the case kudos must be handed out for his ability to still construct songs of such class and quality. Maybe this is what is meant by 'Old Ideas'? With Leonard Cohen the only idea you need to take on is to appreciate the substance of the songwriting and understand that the performance is always honest, without pretence. It's applicable to every single record he's ever made and this is indeed one of the finest.
Listen to the whole album here:
Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
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