Customer Reviews

Songs From A Room

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't know what to say; I really don't. Ordinarily, I delight in having contrarian opinions (but only when I feel they're warranted, thankyouverymuch), but here...what can I say? I'm a big Cohen fan; I have all his stuff, and his first album may well be my favorite CD ever. But...geez. No matter HOW many times I listen to this, I simply CANNOT get into it. It's my least favorite of his albums, by far. That is not, of course, to say there's nothing I like here; indeed 'Story of Isaac' is very possibly my favorite Cohen song--it's simply an incredible piece of music. "Thought I saw an eagle/but it might have heen a vulture" just sends chills down my spine every time. Along with a number of other parts. Furthermore, okay--'...Nancy,' 'The Partisan,' and 'Tonight will be Fine' aren't bad (I almost feel obligated to include 'Bird on a Wire' in that list, but I'm just not feeling it--it would almost certainly be my least favorite track on any given Cohen 'best of'). The REST though--my god, it gives new meaning to the word 'bland.' And even the lyrics--which, at least, are usually a high point even in a bad Cohen song--seem pretty monochromatic. Or maybe not--when I see them written out, I think, okay, that's not bad, but in the context of the songs...there just ain't no life in them. A shame.

Out of ten songs, one classic, three 'okays,' and six that might as well have been left off. Thus, two out of five. Though I want to emphasize again that I'm not happy to have this opinion. It's just that...well, what can I say? Would it make up for it if I noted that I think Death of a Ladies' Man is a great, underrated album? Probably not, eh? Well, it's true. I'd buy that one before this, although 'Story of Isaac' alone makes it ultimately worth the purchase for the committed.

Cohen followed up his debut album with another masterpiece, this collection of magnificent songs of solitude, despair and resignation. Besides The Partisan, a song about the French resistance with its beautiful French verses and female vocals, all compositions are by Cohen. The most popular number here is Bird On A Wire that has been covered by artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Rita Coolidge, Tim Hardin, The Neville Brothers and Jennifer Warnes. For some reason, the opening lines of Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes makes me think of Frodo's journey to Mordor (in Lord Of The Rings): "A bunch of lonesome and very quarrelsome heroes/Were smoking out upon the open road." Other highlights include The Story Of Isaac and The Old Revolution, in both of which Cohen's characteristic Biblical imagery surfaces, and the somber Lady Midnight with its many levels of meaning. Seems So Long Ago is a wistful confessional dirge whilst You Know Who I Am is a delicate love poem with esoteric undertones:"I am the one who loves changing from nothing to one". The mood lightens up on the closing track Tonight Will Be Fine with its catchy melody, driving rhythm and erotic lyric to end the album on a more optimistic note, although even here the sadness is just a sigh away. Cohen's sublime music has a transcendent, spiritual quality. These haunting songs "from a room" have lost none of their poetic impact after 3 decades; their grace, elegance and beauty shine on.

Although not as good as his debut, Songs From A Room is an even darker and more melancholy affair. Cohen's near-monotone, backed with the sparse, vague musical accompaniment delivering Cohen's stark, bitter, heart-wrenching lyrics make for a near-claustrophobic atmosphere. Bird On A Wire still stands as one of Cohen's best compositions, and it has been covered countless times by other artists. Other standout tracks include Story of Isaac and Lady Midnight. The rest of the songs are good, especially when taken in the context of the album, but, personally, I don't like this as much as his other albums that I own. This is not a detriment to the album, it is a testament to the quality of Leonard Cohen's catalog as a whole. Leonard Cohen once wrote a book called "Beautiful Losers." It was in the pre-recording artist stage of his career, but it might as well have been describing his songs. As another reviewer has said, "They are beautiful; they're just not pretty." Many people still don't know Leonard Cohen, but, some day, he will be recognized right up there with Bob Dylan as one of the greatest songwriters of the century; this album being another gem in his canon.

I once spent the whole of a night in Vancouver, B.C. filling a small apartment with balloons as a gift to the woman I lived with at the time. I imagined her delight at opening the door to find the rooms crowded with inconvenient color. But she didn't come home that night.

Leonard Cohen's Songs From A Room played continuously until the sun rose. It was a perfect Cohen moment: pathetic but also comical, lonely but not altogether lost, in turn full of bright buoyant images and pale, creeping light.

He likes his rooms more spartan, but he would have appreciated the irony: Cohen's heroes often balance on a knife edge between sacrifice and suspicion; ready to give it all up for love one moment, and caught in wry resignation the next.

Although overshadowed by its haunting predecessor, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs From A Room is probably my favorite of Leonard's albums. It is - unbelievably - more personal than the first. It seems to begin and end in resolute introspection. As Cohen fans may agree, one almost wonders after living with his songs for years whether Leonard wrote them and sang them for you, or whether you wrote them and gave them to him - so much do they become a magnetic North for our own emotional compasses. In Songs Leonard seems to explore every human relationship: that of lovers certainly ("Tonight Will Be Fine"), but also father and son ("Story of Isaac," "The Butcher"), patriot and country ("The Partisan," "The Old Revolution"), and ambiguous, erotic friendship ("Seems So Long Ago, Nancy").

In this album more than in any other, one of Cohen's most consistent themes repeats: that of the revolutionary. Specifically, how revolutionaries embody an awkward convergence of the saintly, the solitary, and the social. As the heroine in "Joan of Arc" (Songs of Love and Hate, 1971) declares,"..."I'm tired of the war,/I want the kind of work I had before,/a wedding dress or something white..." Like Joan, these heroes are often betrayed by the forces they fight for, and they tend to disillusionment. "I fought in the old revolution/," sings the narrator of "The Old Revolution", "on the side of the ghost and the King./Of course I was very young/and I thought that we were winning/I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing/as they carry the bodies away." To what does the song refer? The Vietnam War? Rock and Roll? It doesn't matter. We know what it feels like.

Love is a revolutionary act. It may overturn countries, or it may not. But it does overturn us.

The sixties saw the appearance of a phenomenon called the "singer-songwriter." We were told that in the best of their work, popular singers were writing and singing poetry. Only a bare handful - among them Paul Simon and Bob Dylan - were legitimate contenders. Leonard Cohen, despite the self-consciousness of his early work, will join Dylan as the best of these. Stack any line of Yeats against this from "The Stranger Song:" "And while he talks his dreams to sleep/you notice there's a highway/that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder..." (Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1968). The image in its compactness chills.

In "The Butcher" the protagonist comes upon a man slaughtering a lamb only to recognize that the butcher is his father. We are always at the mercy of what we love, Cohen seems to say. And betrayal is just around the corner when we dare to love - whether it is a country or a woman. But in the end, however pointless the exercise seems - like a roomful of balloons - we sometimes find ourselves surrounded by beauty. I recall that when Jennifer Warnes put out Famous Blue Raincoat, a compilation of Cohen's songs, the master himself seemed astonished that in her mouth his songs were so "beautiful." They are beautiful, Leonard. They're just not pretty.

An album with some great songs ("Bird on the Wire", "Story of Isaac", "The Partisan", "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy"), and some not-so-great but not-too-bad songs (pretty much everything else). Not a bad album by any means, but doesn't really contain enough to stand out as one of Cohen's best.

I once saw a documentary about Cohen in which he explained that he refused to get out of bed in the morning until he was "in a state of grace." This is quite interesting, and I would encourage everyone to follow this approach. However, preaching aside, I would say that Cohen was certainly in some state of grace when he wrote this gorgeous album. We have all "tried in our ways to be free." (sic.)

This album is one of Cohen's classic albums and contains many brilliant songs. Still I prefere "Songs of Leonard Cohen" and "Songs of love and hate"over this one, but that's merely a matter of taste. Songs like "Bird on a wire", "The Partisan", "lady midnight"," You know who I am" and "Story of Isaac" are all classic and superb Cohen songs. No Cohen collection can do without this album. No bad songs on this one either. Buy it, love it, treasure it.

Cohen is pleading yet matter of fact. Husky and lucid. His voice conveys the mood as his simple flamenco guitar melodies bring forth the full impact of the songs. The combination of his delicate hands and voice allow the listener to feel the power of this Norton Anthology poet. This is his second album and was recorded in Nashville around 1967. This is one of those albums where you can play it over and over again and never grow tired of it.