Author: Cohen, Leonard

Release Date: 27-09-1990

Details: Product Description Vinyl pressing of originally released in 1979. Personnel includes: Leonard Cohen (vocals, guitar).After recovering from his traumatic studio experiences with Phil Spector on DEATH OF A LADIES MAN (Spector was said to have brandished a gun at some point), Cohen retreated to friendlier sonic climes. Aided by co-producer Henry Lewy, he filled RECENT SONGS with stately songpoems marked by lush (but never overdone), elegant arrangements. While there was always a pronounced literary streak in Cohen's work, the songs here find him at his most purely poetic, more the chansonnier than the troubadour."I Came So Far For Beauty" finds Cohen in a familiar self-effacing mode, recounting his vain search for the perfect muse. Like NEW SKIN's "There is a War," "The Traitor" effectively analyzes personal travails through militaristic metaphor, over semi-classical backing. The closing "Ballad of the Absent Mare," later covered by Emmylou Harris, comes off like an epic prose poem in the classic ballad style, but its slight cowboy lilt provides a nice contrast to the lyric. RECENT SONGS is arguably Cohen's most mature '70s effort. PREVIEW : Amazon.ca Though he's long been revered as the brooding writer of some of Canada's most famous contemporary verse, Leonard Cohen's wicked sense of humour has often been overlooked. Rarely is the balance of tragedy and comedy as compelling as it is on 1979's Recent Songs, the low-key follow-up to the Phil Spector-produced Death of a Ladies' Man. A beguiling softness and warmth that recall his earliest recordings replace the aggression of that album. The softly strummed guitars and delicate violin lines perfectly suit the opener, "The Guests" (also the opening song for Cohen's TV special, I Am a Hotel), and bittersweet love songs like "The Window" and "The Traitor." Yet his sense of the perverse is evident in the mariachi arrangement (!) for French-Canadian folk tune "The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien Errant)" and in the conceit of "Ballad of the Absent Mare," in which Cohen likens himself to a forlorn cowboy and his errant lady to a disagreeable horse. Only a great lover could get away with that sort of thing. --Jason Anderson

UPC: 074643626422

EAN: 0074643626422

Languages: English

Binding: Audio CD

Item Condition: New