Leonard Cohen
Live in London
Rating: 3.5
Label: Columbia
Nope. This is not the review where someone makes the brave but foolhardy stance against Leonard Cohen and, in the process, aligns himself or herself against the last 300 years or so of modern fiction and storytelling. This man loves his songs and is humbled by them and hopes he can be their servant instead of their master by the time the final curtain goes down. Cohen being ordained as a Buddhist monk may have been the least surprising career change in music history.
Live in London consists of over two and half emotionally charged hours of listening to Cohen and his associates attempt to equal a lifetime’s worth of prose. Using numerous instruments ranging from harmonica to Spanish guitar and keyboards, Cohen and the band try to race through the sun-soaked valleys and rain-swept streets of one man’s literary landscape. His ensemble mirrors the late 1970s and early 1980s tours; it’s also really a pleasure to hear Sharon Robinson back with Cohen. Their co-vocals on 2001′s “My Secret Life” surpasses the original recording and needs its proper recognition as a song as evocative as anything Cohen’s written. The same goes for erstwhile newer song “Democracy,” which rambles with the perverse glee of a wrong-way cowboy anthem.
The classics are all here. Most of I’m Your Man is represented and Cohen gravels the songs with gusto and energy. Because he’s never bought into the specter of rock ‘n’ roll, his narrow vocal range becomes forceful, elegant and capable of being positively loud with the right accompaniment. “First We Take Manhattan” is in fine form, with Robinson and the Webb Singers bringing out the energy in Cohen’s compact and nattily dressed frame. As a complete band they elevate Cohen, making his “Hallelujah,” which was always meant to be a sexual hymn, propelled by wide-eyed wonderment. Stripping it of its religious trappings by following Jeff Buckley’s admirable cover has bankrupted the song and made it a histrionically selfish piece of music; in 2009 we needed it back. Cohen reclaims it here and makes it joyful again.
Old flames are also reintroduced. “So Long Marianne” and “Suzanne,” two songs that could be credited with predating both the style and content of lo-fi recordings for the next 40 years, are now too famous to be intimate for Cohen. In these larger band arrangements, they have same operatic scope but with almost Olympus-like movements that time has afforded them. The same rule applies to “Bird on the Wire,” which aspires to a new universality through the Hammond B-3 organ, through the cloud of the gods. Some songwriters eventually get around to writing spirituals. It seems that Cohen is intent on proving that he’s never stopped.
Despite all this praise, Live in London isn’t necessarily a must buy. Listening to Cohen’s most powerful songs and recitations for two discs isn’t as full bodied as any of the studio recordings. The bittersweet humor and lively bounce of songs like “Field Commander Cohen” at times are needed to offset the sticky darkness of “Chelsea Hotel #2.” Still, moment by moment, brick by brick, this release is a worthwhile continuation to Cohen’s recorded legacy; recognizing without deifying the dogged humanity in the man behind the voice and the crisp mind that formulated the words (which is really all we can write about any more). There’s nothing left to say about Leonard Cohen that he couldn’t phrase in a better way anyhow.
