Leonard Cohen’s spirit moves us on Thanks for the Dance
It’s a bit much.
I mean, how much Leonard Cohen can we take? Well, if it’s this good, keep it coming. Three years after his passing , Montreal’s venerated poet and baritone songsmith continues to pump out the hits with this week’s release of his posthumous album Thanks for the Dance.
The cards were stacked squarely against this being an album of note. Cohen hit it out of the park with what appeared to be his final album, You Want It Darker , released just weeks before his death in 2016.
Taking a cue from David Bowie, who died just days after the release of his stunning final album, Blackstar, earlier that year, Cohen’s parting shot was a playfully stirring rumination on life, death and everything in between, from a man teetering on the edge.
So what is this? A collection of nine songs selected, compiled and produced by his son Adam — who, tellingly, also oversaw You Want It Darker.
That filial affiliation may be what gives Cohen Sr. a fighting chance while he’s not here to defend himself, or his choices.
Add a varied roster of guests, including Beck, Daniel Lanois,
Damien Rice, Patrick Watson, Feist and Molly Sweeney, and things could have easily got out of hand.
Extremely rare is the posthumous release that doesn’t feel like either a cash grab, or a schmaltzy or otherwise errant unearthing of songs that were never supposed to see the light of day.
And yet, from the first notes of gently plucked Spanish guitar, it’s clear we’re dealing with afterlife jams of a different order on Thanks for the Dance.
The tone is sombre, yet nimble, like the Leonard Cohen who rose to unprecedented fame in his later years, charming the world with his retired playboy philosopher shtick.
He picks up where he left off, his impossibly deep voice intoning the album’s first lines:
“I was always working steady / but I never called it art / I got my s–t together / meeting Christ and reading Marx.”
The song, Happens to the Heart, released last month , is a reflection on the ups, downs and twists of relationships, delivered with wit, drama and mystery.
He gets saucy on The Night of Santiago, a tale of seduction steeped in vivid imagery: “The broken sidewalk ended / I touched her sleeping breasts / they opened to me urgently / like lilies from the dead.” He would know.
Again perfectly spare, with only Cohen’s voice lingering at times, the song picks up in the chorus, which arrives complete with syncopated handclaps, soulful/ghostly backing vocals, and Cohen coming as close as he does to singing.
Lest you think it’s all fun and games, the song cycle gently evolves from matters of the heart in the first half to despair at the midpoint.
It’s hard not to be spooked, and mesmerized, as Cohen whispers out a waltz to one who has left, on It’s Torn:
“It’s torn where there’s beauty, it’s torn where there’s death / It’s torn where there’s mercy but torn somewhat less.” You want it darker?
“I can’t leave my house / or answer the phone,” he intones on The Goal, which clocks in at just one minute, 12 seconds. “I’m going down again / but I’m not alone.”
The Holocaust is the leaping-off point for Puppets, an incisive commentary on the cynical machinations of a world out of control, which still somehow finds a point of light: “Puppet lovers in their bliss, turn away from all of this.”
There is another glimmer of hope in The Hills, which starts off stark and opens into a redemptive, gospel-tinged hymn.
But his most succinct and potent message comes in the album’s final two minutes, with Listen to the Hummingbird.
“Listen to the hummingbird / whose wings you cannot see,” Cohen intones over ethereal piano. “Listen to the hummingbird / Don’t listen to me.”
Spoken like the devout Buddhist he became, eschewing his own fame and with it all the fuss that has been made over him since he disappeared.
His advice is not likely to be heeded in a world in search of idols and heroes. But hey, you can’t make the songs and then ask people not to pay attention.
So here we are. In a city with not one but two Cohen murals keeping watch over its citizens, the anti-prophet has returned from beyond the grave to share a little more of his impish wisdom and evocative asides.