Album Review - Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen
By Douglas Heselgrave
As the years pass, some albums become far more than they ever were
intended to be. They no longer are mere collections of songs that are
bound by liner notes and encased in cover art. Much like the Grateful
Dead's American Beauty became a touchstone for the lives of young freaks
who hit the road in VW buses -- some forever, some until summer ended
and college began -- and Truckin' and Sugar Magnolia ceased to be just
music, it is impossible to hear Songs of Leonard Cohen as a Tabula Rasa
or blank slate. This effort contains its own embedded psychic software,
which comes complete with a kind of brokenhearted GPS that hones the
listener into certain neighborhoods of quiet, rainy melancholia.
Although it originally was released in 1967, the "Summer of Love," the
only flowers on Songs of Leonard Cohen are mixed with garbage from the
harbor; the sense of place that is established is a dark landscape of
waterfront factories and broken windows. Standing in the gloom, the
listener senses, while vicariously imbibing, Suzanne's proffered tea and
oranges, and he can picture the boats coming with goods all the way from
China and other places that are even more remote and uncharted.
Loneliness and travel, whether voluntary or necessary, float through the
tracks of Leonard Cohen's gravely intoned psalms where they connect with
lives that have become unhinged and set adrift. One minute, there is
regret; the next moment is filled with steely resolution. Forty years
later, Songs of Leonard Cohen remains more taut and troubling, more
uplifting and emancipating than it was on the day of its release.
This is an excerpt. To read the complete review, please visit:
http://www.musicbox-online.com/reviews-2007/songs-of-leonard-cohen.html
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