musician Leonard Cohen, during a concert in Madrid in 2012 / BERNARDO PEREZ
The old troubadour has not lost the urge to thread his poems in a collection of songs that are whispering heartbreak or the ugliness of the past and present world, though not missing their hallelujahs. “The party is over but I’ve landed on your feet and stay in this corner where a street used to be,” Leonard Cohen sings resistant (Montreal, 1934) in one of nine songs from their latest album, Popular Problems , which premiered on September 23, just two days after his 80th birthday.
With a lean body physique to giving this serious and unmistakable voice, his dark suit and fedora inseparable, this time on hand to present their work in London Study No. 13, the Canadian singer wanted to share the honors with songwriter and producer Patrick Leonard, creator of hits Madonna, Elton John and Bryan Ferry. “We managed to get here pretty quickly,” says on this collaboration in almost all the disc comes out less than three years after his celebrated Old Ideas , and says a prolific time for the parameters . usual Cohen (in the previous two decades only released four studio albums)
And that he still insists that” it is not because I’m old, and I’ve always liked slow “, as reminiscent in theme Slow whose aromas blues clothing some of the lyrics of Cohen, by the eclectic use of other styles, with special affection for country. “That is our popular music and I do not intend to reinvent the wheel”, stressed on the only apparent musical simplicity flawless Popular Problems in which the artist returns to make space for his disenchantment with love – without denying their gozos- and the world in general, but on this album surprised the repeated allusions to the miseries of war and victims of political venality.
A political album? “Of course my songs reflect the world in which we live, but over the years I have tried setting a policy position that nobody can decipher,” he responded with his steely irony, the same which has used to explain how he held their status as an octogenarian: “Smoking a cigar.” On a more serious note, he has avoided comment on the upcoming referendum in Scotland or separatist demands from Catalonia, beyond “assume that working with the best of intentions on both sides,” though he had just annotating “People try to make their lives as significant, is committed to the fight for self-respect. “
Cohen just wants to talk about human beings through songs that, with female inseparable from its sound vocal support, wonder if” some Once I loved you “( Did I Ever Love You ) or distill the litany of horror but also biting humor (” They’re torture, murder and my bad reviews “) and optimism survivor in vigorous You Got Me Singning , which gets the alleluia. “It’s a wonderful and rich resonance word” he explained in his London appearance, “I sing as people have done for thousands of years because energy seeks to disaster.” The almost liturgical tone of an organ accompanying the sad tribute to South American city devastated by a hurricane facing no opposition from politicians ( Samson in New Orleans ), and the voice of an Arab woman you singing a greeting of peace intrudes on the postwar outlook portrayed in Nevermind .
Leonard Cohen also reminds his Jewish roots in the face with an air of gospel flight and exile of one of the slave of ancient Egypt ( Chained Born ). This reference is important for the artist: “I grew up in a family that fulfilled the Torah, and those values are now essential to my survival” he underlined
no announced yet tour to present new work. , but despite his age has riveted Cohen “I like living on the road, it is much easier to civilian life.” The irony to the end of an elegant man who did not want to unravel the reasons for the title of his album, in Spanish “Popular Issues” but jokingly suggested that the next might be about “unpopular solutions.”
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