You Want It Darker is a most graceful exit
LEONARD COHEN You Want It Darker (Sony) K
The title of Leonard Cohen’s 14th studio album could be a wry challenge to the Montreal poet, singer and songwriter’s many acolytes, all of whom have obviously required a healthy appetite for the shadows to stick with him for all these years. In his own elegant way, Cohen is kind of the Godfather of Goth.
Cohen has always liked it dark, then, but he makes good on his promise to go one darker here. At 82, he makes it clear from the outset of this sombre, subtle winter-years dispatch that the darkness with which You Want It Darker is preoccupied is the ultimate dimming of life’s light.
“If you are the dealer / I’m out of the game,” he proclaims on the opening title track. “You want it darker? / We kill the flame . . . I’m ready, my lord.”
There’s plenty of fodder for morbid thoughts to follow, too.
“I’m angry and I’m tired all the time,” he wheezes on “Treaty,” sounding genuinely tired.
“I’m leaving the table / I’m out of the game / I don’t know the people / In your picture frame,” proclaims “Leaving the Table.”
“I used to play a mean guitar,” he sighs on “Traveling Light.” “Goodnight, goodnight.”
“Steer Your Way,” meanwhile, opens what might be an interrogation of religion’s dead ends with the lines: “Seemed the better way/ When first I heard him speak / But now it’s much too late / To turn the other cheek.”
So, yes, even if the sentiment is premature, You Want It Darker amounts to a long, longing goodbye seemingly delivered from the edge of a great precipice. Don’t get so caught up in the lyric sheet that you miss what a lovely work of music this record also is, however.
Respectfully produced by son Adam Cohen with help from longtime Leonard collaborator Patrick Leonard, You Want It Darker takes its minimalist cues from the classic corners of the Cohen canon, putting just enough of an unobtrusive, modern sheen on the proceedings to situate them firmly in the 21st century.
Cohen’s voice is rightly way out in front here, as grainy and sepulchral and peculiarly expressive within its limited range as it’s ever been. Thus, it takes a couple of spins to realize just how much depth and detail there lurks in the ominous accompaniment — mournful organ chords, hummed chorales, brushed snares, gently nudging, ever-so-snaky basslines, flickers of doo-wop, country and gospel — creeping behind it. And it does indeed creep; You Want It Darker observes the same funereal pace throughout, yet consistently finds new ways to inject variety into that rigorous template.
The longer you spend with it, the deeper it gets. And oddly enough, too, the longer you spend with it, the less dark You Want It Darker feels. This is the sound of a man at peace with whatever may come. We should all aspire to go out on such a graceful note.