Leonard Cohen’s sixth studio album is his return to a more acoustic sound after his previous album Death of a ladies’ man, co-produced by Phil – Wall of sound – Spector. For this album Cohen found the services of German born producer Henry Lewy. Together with gypsy violin, an Armenian oud player and a Mexican Mariacchi band, this would prove a colourful album.
Curiously, I didn’t notice when I listened to it. What I did notice was the fine, monotone baritone of Leonard Cohen, droning all happiness from my mind and replacing with sexy lyrics. Cohen is weird. I have been saying it for years now: his texts are amazing, he just cannot sing.
The picture on the cover is an painted version of the picture that was taken for another album that was prepared at the time, but was not released until 2001: Field commander Cohen: tour of 1979. According to the man himself, this was his best tour ever (just London and Brighton actually. Can we even call that a tour?).
