Leonard Cohen has always been so much more than just a ‘singer-songwriter’. From the first tumbling acoustic notes and bruised resonant tone set to record for the first time in the mid-60s, he has been unmistakably the last of a dying breed. Born in 1934 in Montréal, Quebec, he’s been a novelist, a besuited ladies man, a reclusive monk but most of all a poet, a teacher, a philosopher…
From the romantic lyricism of ‘Suzanne’ and ‘So Long Marianne‘ to the insistent majesty of ‘First We Take Manhattan‘ , the list of classics he has committed to record is endless: his words questioning, his healing voice as deep as an anchor rooted to the bottom of an ocean, a guiding beacon leading you to shore. Any words on a screen can never do this towering outsider figure justice. That he’s still making records is utterly remarkable. It’s a credit to him that even despite the few missteps in his long and varied career, he never releases anything until he feels he absolutely ‘must’, until he feels the call of the muse.
So we come to Leonard‘s 13th album, Popular Problems. To my ears it is a sterling achievement that trumps its predecessor Going Home in its brevity, suppleness and sheer imperious quality. Aided by co-songwriter Patrick Leonard – who had a part in eight of the nine songs – the album stretches over just thirty-nine minutes, seeing Leonard out on a limb but showing his unremitting ability to hush the room.
In his advancing years I wonder what kind of popular problems Len has to deal with day to day: Is he forgetful? Does his car breakdown? Is moving around tricky on icy pavements? Whilst his oft recounted female muses are still present like ghosts at the feast, the ten songs depict a man whose concerns are existential crises. They are returns the themes that permeate his work, only now his views are weathered by the passing of time: Why are we here? What are we doing here? Do you still love me? Why are our leaders so corrupt and compromised? What happens when we die? Each song told through poetic, personal metaphor shot through with Leonard‘s unfaltering eye for detail.
Echoing the stripped back, genre transcending darkness of Songs of Love and Hate, ‘Slow’ wryly shuffles across the room amid elastic baselines, dappling Hammond organ notes, and dexterous knowing croaks in your ear as the night draws in (“it’s not because I’m old/ it’s not the life I’ve led/I’ve always liked it slow that’s what my mama said“). Laced with superlative meditative strokes and cooing backings, ‘Almost Like the Blues’ is helmed by Leonard‘s confessional crumpled voice and perhaps significant more for what is left out than what is included. Subtle production garnished by caressing bass, parping horns and piano tinkles sparkling like droplets through the verse are all reminders of Leonard‘s extraordinary folkish 1967 debut album Songs from a Room. The husky stabbing bar room blues of ‘A Street’ is daubed with rippling dissection of sorrowful break up and the end of the party: the fall of empires see-sawing between experience and modernistic dark irony of conflicts and relationship cul-de-sacs (‘you always said we were equal/ so let me march with you/ an extra in the sequel to the red white and blue’).
The record’s triple-crowned centrepiece comes first in the form of the startling ‘Samson in New Orleans’ , a gut wrenching sound of someone reaching down into the well of loneliness. Leonard‘s cracked, world-weary vocal tone emerges from the tomb. Stretched to a breaking point, it’s almost too painful to listen to the allusions to murderous religious imagery that cast long shadows over the desolate waking light of sins and loss (‘stand me by those pillars let me take this temple down’), sewn with haunting violins and sighed over by a backing choir. If this is his epitaph – let it be so.
The skipping, almost jaunty country interludes stand in stark contrast to the gruff piano and string confessional of ‘Did I Ever Love You’ : Leonard‘s anguished, frayed and weathered growl underscores that despite his mistakes he really did care! ‘Born of Chains‘ deconstructs the Lord’s prayer in a majestic, almost gospel-like fashion. This is Leonard surveying the scene and building upon Exodus: the chains of self doubt, loneliness, lust and the uncertainty of love…Drawing upon a rich seam of metaphors from war to injustice, it is also the poignant lyrical highpoint of the record (‘only darkness now to lift the longing up’). The soft shoe shuffle and brass parps of ‘My Oh My’ casts backward glances fulfilled by tenderness and parting regret. You could criticise this song for not going anywhere but that would be foolish as it settles in its worn groove, pleasingly. The pulsing beat and tumbling refrains of ‘Nevermind‘ are briefly reminiscent of a slower ‘Now We Take Manhattan’ from the 1988 album ‘I’m Your Man’. Guest vocalist, kirtan singer Donna DeLory, and palmed bongo beats offer a hint of the Middle East: a brief ray of sun in a dark and shadowy landscape.
At nine songs, Popular Problems doesn’t outstay its welcome. Uncluttered and unhurried arrangements allow Leonard Cohen to sing rich with wit and compassion. Sing his words of regret, words of love, words of warring continents. If Popular Problems is to be his last work, he is going out with a superlative testament to his artistry. Still the embodiment of a magisterial melancholia, Leonard Cohen remains one of music’s living greats.
[Rating:4]
