Leonard Cohen: Live in London

Great poets walk among us. Not many, but a few. Bob Dylan is one, Tom Waits another. But before little Bobby Zimmerman came into the world and before "Closing Time," there was Leonard Cohen. Before his brilliant debut album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," was released in 1967, a few months after he turned 33, he was already celebrated for over a decade as a poet and novelist, with four collections of his poetry and two novels published.

Now with nineteen records released over a career spanning more than forty years, Leonard Cohen is three quarters of a century old and for the first time in fifteen years, he's back on tour.

Cohen's return to live performance, along with his latest record, "Live in London," are his responses to financial woes resulting from an old story made manifest in Cohen's legacy: betrayal by the trusted financial adviser. In Cohen's case, his money vanished while he was on a five-year sabbatical in a Zen monastery in California studying Buddhism. Talk about weird karma.

After a fuller life and career than many are afforded, Cohen was mostly retired from the music business. And who could blame him? His name graces the walls of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the U.S. and his native Canadian Music Hall of Fame. His music has been the inspiration of countless other musicians including the late Jeff Buckley whose version of Cohen's "Hallelujah" became famous in the mid-'90s and then rose again to popularity last year in the U.K. (Alexandra Burke's cover). Even Dylan couldn't resist taking a crack at that song, which I strongly suggest you to listen to here. Until the release of "Live in London," Cohen's only recording during the 2000s was 2004's "Dear Heather."

Yet due to unfortunate circumstances, a fortunate thing has happened. Leonard Cohen is back in the flesh to share his wisdom and passions, to sing to us once more the songs that have been milestones, awakenings, and even public therapy for the broken-hearted.

"Live in London" is a two-disc set from Cohen's performance at O2 Arena on July 17, 2008 before an audience of over 20,000. Backing Cohen are Bob Metzger on the pedal steel and electric guitar, Sharon Robinson and the Webb sisters on backing vocals, Roscoe Beck on bass, Neil Larsen on keys and organ, Javier Mas on strings, Dino Soldo on wind instruments, and Rafael Bernando Gayol on drums. As far as live recordings go, this recording is superb and serves as an important article for his canon. All traces of this being an arena show are absent. Cohen isn't singing to a gigantic audience, he's singing directly, intimately to 20,000 individual people. Just as comforting is the feeling that he wouldn't know how to sing otherwise. That "golden voice" somehow both gravelly and smooth, suave and awkward, sultry and hesitant is as distinct and potent now — if not more so — than it was in 1967 when his stunningly brilliant debut, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," was released.

The performance starts with one of what will be a whole night of familiar tunes, "Dance Me To The End Of Love." No time is wasted delving right into that signature Leonard Cohen sound that teeters between soulful and schmaltzy — as curious as it is infectious.

Cohen is possibly the only living artist, who, within a song, can cause one's nose to wrinkle, brow to furrow and but a few chords later, have one utterly awe-struck and forever changed. Though most of these songs are aged and familiar, Cohen and his band make them new again. Different pacing, changed harmonies, improvisations, of course, and Cohen's voice — never the same song sung twice.

"500 tons of whiskey and 50-60 years of smoking," as Cohen confessed during an interview with NPR's Terry Gross, and probably without too much exaggeration, have brought a whispery strain to his singing. The physical, audible damage complements the damage of which he sings. As a lifelong manic depressive, Cohen's made somewhat of an artistic martyr of himself. When asked by an interviewer in 1997 if he thought that his battle with depression was to thank for the greater quality of his art, he quickly dismissed the notion.

"Good work," he said, "is produced in spite of suffering…as a victory over suffering."

Cohen has since quit smoking. The sparse banter on "Live in London" seems to hint at a happier, healthier, more resolved man. If in his young life he suffered, created, and persevered, on "Live in London," he celebrates.

"It's been a long time since I stood on this stage in London," he said the night this album was recorded, to a round of appreciative applause. "It was about 14 or 15 years ago. I was 60 years old…just a kid with a crazy dream."

At best, Cohen has left us something great to remember; at worst the band doesn't quite match up in style or mood. The out of place Stevie Wonder-ish motar part on "Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye," for example, or Soldo's Lenny Pickett/SNL-sounding sax solos — which isn't to say they're not well played or exhibit talent — but at times, the clash in style exceeds Cohen's extraordinary means of balance. The song version of "Democracy" that is played here, as opposed to the spoken word version, isn't as heavy or effective and feels lackluster in comparison. Javier Mas's two-minute flamenco-style intro to "Who By Fire," however, hits the mark as do the corresponding instrumentals in the punchdrunk swing-ish saunter of "I'm Your Man."

The track listing for Live in London, released on Columbia records on March 31, 2009, recorded July 17, 2008 in London at the O2 Arena:

Disc 1

1. Dance Me To The End Of Love - 6:20

2. The Future - 7:20

3. Ain't No Cure For Love - 6:16

4. Bird On The Wire - 6:14

5. Everybody Knows - 5:52

6. In My Secret Life - 5:02

7. Who By Fire - 6:35

8. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye - 3:47

9. Anthem - 7:20

10. Introduction - 1:29

11. Tower Of Song - 7:07

12. Suzanne - 3:46

13. The Gypsy's Wife - 6:42

Disc 2

1. Boogie Street - 6:57

2. Hallelujah - 7:20

3. Democracy - 7:08

4. I'm Your Man - 5:41

5. Recitation w/ N.L. - 3:53

6. Take This Waltz - 8:37

7. So Long, Marianne - 5:24

8. First We Take Manhattan - 6:15

9. Sisters Of Mercy - 4:56

10. If It Be Your Will - 5:22

11. Closing Time - 6:15

12. I Tried To Leave You - 8:33

13. Wither Thou Goest - 1:27

Rather than attempt a graceful landing myself here, I'll give the last word to the true poet, a line from "Anthem" that brilliantly sums up Cohen's greatest life lesson:

"Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything — that's how the light gets in."