LEONARD COHEN
Thanks for the Dance
Columbia/Legacy Records
Three years ago, Leonard Cohen released You Want It Darker. As I wrote at the time, the album was “a masterwork filled with
conversational and hypnotically mesmerizing song-poems layered with meaning
that both reveal more every time they are heard and suggest new avenues of
meaning and interpretation rendering them ever mysterious.”
When Leonard died less than three weeks after You Want It
Darker was released, it was assumed that it was his final work. The album
was produced by Adam Cohen, Leonard’s son, himself an accomplished
singer-songwriter. As we now know, rough sketches for more songs – essentially
Leonard reciting or gently singing his song-poems – were recorded during those
sessions. Near the end of his life, Cohen the father tasked Cohen the son with
completing the songs. The result is Thanks for the Dance, yet another
Leonard Cohen masterwork of nine song-poems, seven of which have musical
settings composed or co-composed by Adam.
The album opens with “Happens to the Heart,” a
sometimes-oblique look back at love and relationships and searches through
religion and philosophy. A key verse seems to be an ultimate rejection of the
Zen master Leonard studied with and served for several years (and who was
eventually revealed to be a sexual predator). Aside from Leonard’s deeply
compelling voice – it is compelling throughout the album – the track is highlighted
by the Spanish laud virtuosity of Javier Mas (Mas also plays guitar on several
of the other songs on the album).
Then comes “Moving On,” a lovely Mediterranean-sounding
reminiscence of Marianne Ihlen. Marianne – who inspired several of
Leonard’s greatest early songs, including the anthemic “So Long, Marianne” –
died just four months before Leonard. Later in the album, Leonard sings “It’s
Torn,” which I suspect may also have been inspired by Marianne’s passing.
The Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, was one of
Leonard’s literary influences and I suspect that “The Night of Santiago,” was
at least partially inspired by Lorca’s poem “Santiago,” which was inspired by
James, the patron saint of Spain. Leonard’s song, with its gentle flamenco
arrangement, is a detailed, dream-like evocation of a seduction of a seemingly
forbidden woman.
“Thanks for the Dance,” the album’s title song is a
re-imagined version of a song that originally appeared on Blue Alert, a
2006 album by Anjani Thomas, produced by Leonard. This version, perhaps
a farewell to another lover, is set as a quiet waltz.
In “The Goal,” a very short poem-song at just over a minute
in length, Leonard seems to be poignantly reflecting on his condition, knowing
that death is near.
“Puppets,” a rumination on the Holocaust, war and political
chaos is certainly one of the most powerful songs on the album. Its arrangement
features profoundly performed vocals by two choirs: Cantus Domus, a
choir of women from Berlin, and the Shaar Hashomayim Men’s Choir, from
Leonard’s home synagogue in Montreal (the Shaar Choir’s vocals were also a
highlight on two songs from You Want It Darker).
In “The Hills,” the penultimate song, Leonard again seems to
be pondering the end of life. “The system is shot/I’m living on pills/For which
I thank God,” he sings in the refrain.
Finally, in “Listen to the Hummingbird,” Leonard seems to be
telling us what is ultimately important for us to pay attention to: “Listen to
the hummingbird… Listen to the butterfly… Listen to the mind of God/Don’t
Listen to Me.”
Like so much of Leonard’s other work, I suspect that more
layers of meaning will be revealed each time I listen to Thanks for the
Dance.
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