Recent Songs
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:
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Recent Songs
- Artist: Leonard Cohen
- Rating:
- Release Date: 1979
- Genre: Rock
Review
The first thing Leonard Cohen's music fans noticed about his sixth new studio album, given the typically open-ended title Recent Songs, was that, musically, it marked a return to the gypsy folk sound of his early records after the incongruous arrangements Phil Spector imposed on its predecessor, Death of a Ladies' Man, only two years earlier. There were subtle musical developments, particularly a flavor of the American Southwest, courtesy of the band Passenger, which played on several tracks, but the acoustic guitars and violin recalled classic Cohen. Fans of the artist's poetry noticed something else. His writing had become increasingly bitter and angry during the 1970s in the books The Energy of Slaves and Death of a Lady's Man as well as in his lyrics, but there was a new equanimity in these Recent Songs that began with the welcoming introduction of "The Guests." All was not suddenly well, of course, but "the open-hearted many" outnumbered "the broken-hearted few." Cohen's usual mixture of religious and sexual imagery in the songs was elegant and evocative rather than painful. If he was conscious of the sacrifices he had made in vain in "Came So Far for Beauty," he was nevertheless able to make a sincere plea to a woman in "The Window," mixing it with a prayer to "gentle this soul." The album was full of references to absence and dislocation, but Cohen deliberately countered them with humor. The cover of "The Lost Canadian (Un Canadient Errant)" was enlivened by a mariachi arrangement, and the album ended with "Ballad of the Absent Mare," an allegory about a cowboy's search for a horse that ended with the suggestion that the pursuit was only a romantic game. Though often abstract, Recent Songs suggested Cohen had regained a certain equilibrium after a long dark period. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi| Recent Fossils (2006 Album by Ut Gret) | |
| Recent Work (1982 Album by Lou Martin) |
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Recent Songs
| Recent Songs | ||||
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| Studio album by Leonard Cohen | ||||
| Released | September 1979 | |||
| Recorded | April - May 1979 at A&M Studios, Hollywood | |||
| Genre | Folk | |||
| Length | 52:55 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Leonard Cohen, Henry Lewy | |||
| Leonard Cohen chronology | ||||
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Recent Songs is the sixth studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in 1979. Produced by him and Henry Lewy, it 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.
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Contents
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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 Ten Bulls (or Ten Ox-herding Pictures). The song is covered by several artists, notably Emmylou Harris on the album Cowgirl's Prayer (as "Ballad of a Runaway Horse") and Perla Batalla feat. David Hidalgo on the album Bird on the Wire: the Songs of Leonard Cohen.
Martha Wainwright performed "The Traitor" in the film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.
Outtakes
Three outtakes are known, "The Faith", "Misty Blue" (by Bobby Montgomery), and a studio recording of "Do I Have to Dance All Night", a live version of which was released as a 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 acknowledged 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.
| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   link |
| Piero Scaruffi |   link |
| Robert Christgau | (B) link |
| Rolling Stone | (mixed) link |
Track listing
All songs written by Leonard Cohen, except where noted.
Side one
- "The Guests" - 6:40
- "Humbled in Love" - 5:15
- "The Window" - 5:56
- "Came So Far for Beauty" (Cohen, John Lissauer) - 4:04
- "The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien errant)" (Traditional, Antoine Gérin-Lajoie) - 4:42
Side two
- "The Traitor" - 6:16
- "Our Lady of Solitude" - 3:13
- "The Gypsy's Wife" - 5:13
- "The Smokey Life" - 5:19
- "Ballad of the Absent Mare" - 6:26
External links
- Album lyrics, from The Leonard Cohen Files
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