Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs
NME.COM feature on Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.
Album Review
Release date: 31 August 1979
Cohen, Leonard : Ten New Songs
King of misery returns from monastry with synthesizer.
Even his most optimistic fans could've been forgiven for thinking that they'd heard the last of Leonard Cohen, the most urbanely depressed of rock's elder statesmen. After all, he's just turned 67, hasn't released an album in nine years and, most pertinently, appeared to have found contentment of sorts living as a Buddhist monk in California. Fears of a red wine...
Tracklisting click track to read more
- The Guests
- Humbled in Love
- The Window
- Came So Far for Beauty
- The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien Errant)
- The Traitor
- Our Lady of Solitude
- The Gypsy's Wife
- The Smokey Life
- Ballad of the Absent Mare
More Leonard Cohen Reviews
Festival International De Benicassim
Ah yes, the Spanish festival with guaranteed sun that’s a stone’s throw from the beach. Bliss. Castello De La Plana, Spain (July 17-20)
Leonard Cohen Tickets
| Date / Time | Artist | Venue | Town/City | Seetickets | Viagogo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 08, 2012 15:00 | Leonard Cohen | Hop Farm Country Park | Tonbridge | Tickets not currently available. |
Buy Leonard Cohen Tickets |
| Sep 09, 2012 15:00 | Leonard Cohen | Hop Farm Country Park | Tonbridge | Tickets not currently available. |
Buy Leonard Cohen Tickets |
Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs Videos
More Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs Videos
Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs YouTube Videos
More Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs YouTube Videos
Leonard Cohen News
Leonard Cohen announces a second UK show for September – ticket details
Singer will play a second Day At Hop Farm show later this year
Leonard Cohen's former manager sentenced to 18 months in prison
Kelley Lynch is also banned from owning weapons for 10 years
Leonard Cohen's ex-manager found guilty of harassment
Kelley Lynch now faces up to five years in prison
Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs: Wikipedia Album Entry
Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs (1979)
Recent Songs was the sixth studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in 1979. Produced by Henry Lewy and the artist himself, the album was a return to Cohen's acoustic folk music after the Phil Spector experimentation of Death of a Ladies' Man, but now with many jazz and Oriental influences.
The album included Gypsy violin player Raffi Hakopian, Armenian oud player (located in Los Angeles) John Bilezikjian, and even a Mexican Mariachi band. Long-time Cohen collaborator Jennifer Warnes prominently appeared in vocal tracks. Members of the band Passenger, whom Cohen met through Joni Mitchell, played on four of the songs. They also served as his tour band later that year and in 1980. Mitchell had also introduced Cohen to her regular sound engineer Henry Lewy, who produced Recent Songs. Garth Hudson of The Band also appeared on the album.
Track notes:
"Came So Far for Beauty" seems to be an unaltered outtake from the unfinished 1975 album Songs for Rebecca (the horns may have been added later), which also included early versions of "The Traitor" and "The Smokey Life" (then with music by John Lissauer).
"Ballad of the Absent Mare"'s metaphoric lyrics are based on the twelfth-century text "Ten Ox-herding Pictures" (or "The Ten Bulls") by the Chinese master Ka-Kuan. The song has been covered by several artists, notably Emmylou Harris on the album Cowgirl's Prayer, in this case, as in some others, as "Ballad of a Runaway Horse."
Outtakes:
Three outtakes are known, "The Faith", "Misty Blue" (by Bobby Montgomery), and "Do I Have to Dance All Night", the latter being a studio recording of a live song released as single in 1976. Cohen wanted to include "Misty Blue"/"Do I Have to Dance All Night" as a free bonus single with the LP, but Columbia rejected the idea. Cohen's 2004 song "The Faith" is based on the same folk tune as "Un Canadien errant" (which was covered on Recent Songs), and Cohen's collaborator Anjani admitted in a 2005 interview (Old Ideas: Notes on Dear Heather) that he used an out-taked alternate 1979 track for "Un Canadien errant", adding new vocal line with completely new lyrics, for his 2004 album Dear Heather.
Additional informations edited by timppa55
COMPOSER: Cohen
YEAR: 1979
LABEL: Columbia JC 36364
TIME: 52'55
PRODUCER: Cohen & Lewy (engineer)
PAINTING: Dianne Lawrence
COUNTRY: CA
GENRE: Folk
Cohen vocal & guitar
Raffi Hakopian Gypsy violin
John Bilezikjian, oud
Jennifer Warnes vocal
Members of the band Passenger
A Mexican Mariachi band
Garth Hudson of The Band
Cohen's 6th studio album. Quite a contrast to his
previous 'Death Of A Ladies' Man'
Here he uses small combos and the overall
feeling is very intimate and folk-like.
This is Cohen at his best.
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.
Like Leonard Cohen? You might also like...
Artist/Album artwork images hosted by Last.fm. For copyright enquiries please see here.
Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs Lyrics
Leonard Cohen - Ballad of The Absent Mare Lyrics
Say a prayer for the cowboy, his mare's run away
And he'll walk 'til he finds her, his darling, his stray
But the river's in flood and the roads are awash
And the bridges break up in the panic of loss
Leonard Cohen - Humbled in Love Lyrics
Do you remember all of those pledges
That we pledged in the passionate night
Ah, they're soiled now, they're torn at the edges
Like moths on a still yellow light
Leonard Cohen - Our Lady of Solitude Lyrics
All summer long she touched me
She gathered in my soul
From many a thorn, from many thickets
Her fingers, like a weaver's
Leonard Cohen - The Smokey Life Lyrics
I've never seen your eyes so wide
I've never seen your appetite quite this occupied
Elsewhere is your feast of love
I know, where long ago we agreed to keep it light
Leonard Cohen - The Traitor Lyrics
Now the swan it floated on the English river
Ah, the rose of high romance, it opened wide
A sun tanned woman yearned me through the summer
And the judges watched us from the other side
Leonard Cohen - The Window Lyrics
Now why do you stand by the window
Abandoned to beauty and pride
The thorn of the night in your bosom
The spear of the age in your side?
Leonard Cohen - I Came So Far For Beauty Lyrics
I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
Leonard Cohen - Un Canadien Errant (The Lost Canadian) Lyrics
Un Canadien Errant (A wandering Canadian,)
Banni de ses foyers, (banned from his hearths,)
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays etrangers. (in foreign lands.)
More Leonard Cohen - Un Canadien Errant (The Lost Canadian) Lyrics
Leonard Cohen - The Gypsy's Wife Lyrics
And where, where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?
I've heard all the wild reports, they can't be right
But whose head is this she's dancing with on the threshing floor?
Whose darkness deepens in her arms just a little more
