You Want It Darker is almost deceptively straight-forward, serving up pretty much everything Cohen fans have come to expect. There are lines he could easily have written in his 30s (you smiled at me like I was young, it took my breath away) except that the passing of time has taken the sting out of their sardonic humour and turned them towards being actually true, and it feels the more emotional for it. He seems to touch on both the Holocaust and the crucifixion of Jesus in a glancing, I-remember-this-shitty-time way, his age-ravaged voice giving the impression of a man who knows infinitely more than he could ever write in a bunch of four-minute songs. There's surely enough unreleased Cohen material to fill several Odysseys, so it may not entirely be this listener's imagination at work.
Yet the major theme of You Want It Darker is not of tragedy or loss or sorrow, but more a contented resignation. If song names like "Leaving the Table" didn't signal it already, Darker sees Cohen putting a lifetime of ghosts more or less to rest. "Traveling Light" has a nomad-esque character turning their back on love for a life of travel, while "Leaving the Table" employs a card game metaphor for love, struggle or even life itself. "Treaty" is perhaps the most heartbreaking and pivotal song, a deeply felt but still bitter apology from one side of a battlefield to another from a lover who's been fighting so long he's stopped caring who wins. The song weighs heavy with pain, but the catharsis comes not with the beautiful flurry of strings which take up most of the "String Reprise" but, as Cohen often chooses it to, in the barest and most minimalist of moments. With the simplest of piano and the barely felt thump of drums scraping against Cohen's ragged growl of a voice we hear the stripping bare of eighty years of frustration, disappointment and self-loathing; we hear the forgiveness and at least an attempt at letting go, illuminated beautifully in the way that only Leonard Cohen ever really could do. And it's beautiful.
"I'm so sorry for the ghost I made you be/only one of us was real and that was me"
Tracklist for You Want It Darker:
1. You Want It Darker
2. Treaty
3. On A Level
4. Leaving The Table
5. If I Didn't Had Your Love
6. Traveling Light
7. It Seemed The Better Way
8. Steer Your Way
9. String Reprise/Treaty
Yet the major theme of You Want It Darker is not of tragedy or loss or sorrow, but more a contented resignation. If song names like "Leaving the Table" didn't signal it already, Darker sees Cohen putting a lifetime of ghosts more or less to rest. "Traveling Light" has a nomad-esque character turning their back on love for a life of travel, while "Leaving the Table" employs a card game metaphor for love, struggle or even life itself. "Treaty" is perhaps the most heartbreaking and pivotal song, a deeply felt but still bitter apology from one side of a battlefield to another from a lover who's been fighting so long he's stopped caring who wins. The song weighs heavy with pain, but the catharsis comes not with the beautiful flurry of strings which take up most of the "String Reprise" but, as Cohen often chooses it to, in the barest and most minimalist of moments. With the simplest of piano and the barely felt thump of drums scraping against Cohen's ragged growl of a voice we hear the stripping bare of eighty years of frustration, disappointment and self-loathing; we hear the forgiveness and at least an attempt at letting go, illuminated beautifully in the way that only Leonard Cohen ever really could do. And it's beautiful.
"I'm so sorry for the ghost I made you be/only one of us was real and that was me"
Tracklist for You Want It Darker:
1. You Want It Darker
2. Treaty
3. On A Level
4. Leaving The Table
5. If I Didn't Had Your Love
6. Traveling Light
7. It Seemed The Better Way
8. Steer Your Way
9. String Reprise/Treaty