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Leonard Cohen: Dear Heather

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Columbia Records
Released: 2004.10.26
Time:
 49:27
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Leanne Ungar, Sharon Robinson, Anjani Thomas, Henry Lewy, Leonard Cohen
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.leonardcohen.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2011
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Go No More A-Roving (Lord Byron/L.Cohen) - 3:40
[2] Because Of (L.Cohen) - 3:00
[3] The Letters (L.Cohen/S.Robinson) - 4:44
[4] Undertow (L.Cohen) - 4:20
[5] Morning Glory (L.Cohen) - 3:28
[6] On That Day (L.Cohen/A.Thomas) - 2:04
[7] Villanelle for Our Time (F.R.Scott) - 5:55
[8] There for You (L.Cohen/S.Robinson) - 4:36
[9] Dear Heather (L.Cohen) - 3:41
[10] Nightingale (L.Cohen/A.Thomas) - 2:27
[11] To a Teacher (L.Cohen) - 2:32
[12] The Faith (trad.) - 4:17
[13] Tennessee Waltz (R.Stewart/P.W.King/L.Cohen) - 4:05

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Leonard Cohen - Arranger, Composer, Drawing, Guitar, Jew's-Harp, Piano, Vocals, Producer on [13]

Sharon Robinson -
Anjani Thomas -
Ed Sanders -
Henry Lewy -

Anjani Thomas - Producer on [6] and [10], Composer, Engineer, Photography, Piano, Producer, Vocal Arrangement, Vocals, Background Vocals
Roscoe Beck - Bass
John Bilezikjian - Oud
Richard Crooks - Drums
John Crowder - Bass, Bass Guitar, Vocals
Johnny Friday - Drums
Ron Getman - Steel Guitar, Vocals
Bill Ginn - Piano
Raffi Hakopian - Violin
Raffi Hakopian - Violin
Garth Hudson - Accordion
Sarah Kramer - Trumpet
Paul Ostermayer - Flute
Stan Sargeant - Bass
Bob Sheppard - Tenor Saxophone
Mitch Watkins - Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals
Jeremy Lubbock - String Arrangements

Leanne Ungar - Producer on [2], [4–5], [7] and [9-11], Engineer, Producer
Sharon Robinson - Arranger, Composer, Engineer, Producer, Various, Vocals, Producer on [1], [3] and [8]
Henry Lewy - Producer on [12]
Ed Sanders - Producer on [10], Engineer, Producer
Stephen Marcussen - Mastering
Michael Petit - Design
Tina Tyrell - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2004 CD Columbia 92891
2004 CD Sony Music Distribution SICP-643
2007 CD Sony BMG 643

Dear Heather is Leonard Cohen's eleventh studio album, released in 2004. It shows a further departure from Ten New Songs, with more female lead singing and a marked increase in read poetry over sung lyrics, two of these being poems by other writers. The album was set to appear under the title Old Ideas, but Cohen changed the title as he was assured it would mislead people to believe that it was a compilation or Best Of. Again, Cohen recorded it digitally in his and Sharon Robinson's home studios in Los Angeles, as he did with his previous album, Ten New Songs... The album reached #131 on the Billboard 200 and Internet Album charts and #5 on the Canadian Album charts. It was Cohen's highest charting album in America since 1969's Songs from a Room.



There is an air of finality on Leonard Cohen's Dear Heather. Cohen, who turned 70 in September of 2004, offers no air of personal mortality -- thank God; may this elegant Canadian bard of the holy and profane live forever. It nonetheless looks back -- to teachers, lovers, and friends -- and celebrates life spent in the process of actually living it. The album's bookend tracks provide some evidence: Lord Byron's bittersweet "Go No More A-Roving," set to music and sung by Cohen and Sharon Robinson (and dedicated to Cohen's ailing mentor, Irving Layton), and a beautifully crafted reading of country music's greatest lost love song, "Tennessee Waltz." Cohen's voice is even quieter, almost whispering, nearly sepulchral. The tone of the album is mellow, hushed, nocturnal. Its instrumentation is drenched in the beat nightclub atmospherics of Ten New Songs: trippy, skeletal R&B and pop and Casio keyboard- and beatbox-propelled rhythm tracks are graced by brushed drums, spectral saxophones, and vibes, along with an all but imperceptible acoustic guitar lilting sleepily through it all. But this doesn't get it, because there's so much more than this, too. That said, Dear Heather is Cohen's most upbeat offering. Rather than focus on loss as an end, it looks upon experience as something to be accepted as a portal to wisdom and gratitude. Women permeate these songs both literally and metaphorically. Robinson, who collaborated with Cohen last time, is here, but so is Anjani Thomas. Leanne Ungar also lends production help. Cohen blatantly sums up his amorous life in "Because Of": "Because of a few songs/Wherein I spoke of their mystery/Women have been exceptionally kind to my old age/They make a secret place/In their busy lives/And they say, 'Look at me, Leonard/Look at me one last time.'" "The Letters," written with Robinson, who sings in duet, is a case in point, reflecting on a past love who has been "Reading them again/The ones you didn't burn/You press them to your lips/My pages of concern...The wounded forms appear/The loss, the full extent/And simple kindness here/The solitude of strength." "On That Day" is a deeply compassionate meditation on the violence of September 11 where he asks the question: "Did you go crazy/Or did you report/On that day...." It is followed by the spoken poem "A Villanelle for Our Time," with words by Cohen's late professor Frank Scott that transform these experiences into hope. "We rise to play a greater part/The lesser loyalties depart/And neither race nor creed remain/From bitter searching of the heart...." On "There for You," with Robinson, Cohen digs even deeper into the well, telling an old lover that no matter the end result of their love, he was indeed there, had shown up, he was accountable and is grateful. Cohen quotes his own first book, The Spice Box of Earth, to pay tribute to the late poet A.M. Klein. "Tennessee Waltz" is indeed a sad, sad song, but it is given balance in Cohen's elegant, cheerful delivery. If this is indeed his final offering as a songwriter, it is a fine, decent, and moving way to close this chapter of the book of his life.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



Leonard Cohen must be the envy of countless singer-songwriters. Who else has been cozily buffered from the ravages of pop music than this eminent but never particularly prominent Canadian wordsmith? Nearing four decades as a recording artist, Cohen has never left his original label, despite failing to ever register anything resembling a commercial hit. Long ago shed of the "new Dylan" trappings that greeted his first recordings, Cohen now cushions his carefully wrought lyrics in smooth keyboard-and-vocal-heavy arrangements that owe far more to MOR pop and cabaret then folk-rock. His words and delivery have become more nuanced and playful as he's grayed. Listen to the sexy self-deprecation of "Because of" ("Because of a few songs/ Wherein I spoke of their mystery/ Women have been/ Exceptionally kind in my old age") or the weary resolve of his 9-11 statement, "On That Day" ("Did you go crazy or did you report/ On that day…they wounded New York?"). Dear Heather, likes its creator, is at once new and old, familiar and fresh.

Steven Stolder - Amazon.com



Mit seinen inzwischen siebzig Jahren liefert Leonard Cohen ein reifes Spätwerk ab, das Bilanz zieht und dennoch an keiner Stelle in einen abschließenden Schwanengesang verfällt. Auf Dear Heather bündelt der ergraute Meister mit der Weisheit des Alters seine Erfahrungen. In sehr persönlichen und letztlich doch allgemein gültigen Versen singt und spricht er vom Mysterium des Lebens und der Liebe als dessen stärkster Kraft. Der Kanadier, der ein Jahr vor Elvis Presley das Licht der Welt erblickte, resümiert dabei sein künstlerisches Schaffen und sein privates Dasein mit einer Leichtigkeit, die man früher nicht von ihm kannte. Galt er in den Anfangstagen seiner Karriere als depressiver Schwarzseher, als "Gottvater der Düsternis", so findet er im Seniorenalter überraschend immer mehr zu einer gelassenen, fast heiteren Sicht der Dinge. Zu balladesken Sounds vom Synthie und der computerprogrammierten Beatbox feiert der Mann aus Montreal hier die Schönheit der Welt in all ihren Facetten. Seitdem er in den 90ern fünf Jahre in einem Zen-Zentrum verbrachte und sich den Beinamen Jikan (der Stille) erwarb, hat er offensichtlich Frieden mit sich selbst geschlossen, kann sich endlich an den kleinen Dingen des Lebens erfreuen. So gesteht Leonard Norman Cohen etwa im Title-Track "Dear Heather", dass er heute die Faszination des anderen Geschlechts genießt, ohne von der eigenen Begierde permanent versklavt zu werden. "Go No More A-Roving", basierend auf einem Poem von Lord Byron, handelt ebenfalls von den Fleischeslüsten, über die der Geist am Ende dann aber doch siegt. In "There For You" denkt der Sprössling einer jüdischen Mittelklassefamilie ohne Wehmut an seine Vergangenheit zurück. Und "Because Of" schließlich ist eine überaus mutige Auseinandersetzung mit dem nahenden Tod, mit der eigenen Sterblichkeit. Ein ums andere Mal lässt uns Cohen in poetischen Meditationen an seinem Erfahrungsschatz teilhaben. Ein Geschenk, das echte Fans mit Dankbarkeit entgegennehmen werden.

Harald Kepler - Amazon.de



Anyone who thinks that rock stars should have a retirement age is obviously not a big Leonard Cohen fan. Aged 70, Cohen has rolled out Dear Heather, which stands, alongside Ten New Songs and I'm Your Man as proof positive that there is life after youth for this part-time monk. But even on his early albums, Cohen sounded positively ancient, wise beyond his years- you get the feeling that he's at the age he was born to be, and Dear Heather feels like the album he's been waiting to make. As soon as it starts, you know it's not going to be anything less than classic Cohen. His deep rich croon, weathered slightly through the ravages of age, has matured like an oak tree, betraying enough expression that even a man of 50 would sound immature with his words. Musically, he's ably supported primarily by soft keyboard textures and female vocals that sooth the rough edges of his voice, but nothing too obtrusive to blunt his vision. Impossible to pick a standout, the album works as a whole piece, and even when Cohen tackles country standard "The Tennessee Waltz", its heartbreaking content make it sound like his own work. Essential.

Thom Allott - Amazon.co.uk



Leonard Cohen's Dear Heather is full of poetry, weighty themes, and lighthearted humor. Unlike some of his more slickly produced later work, Dear Heather has a light and spacious touch. Cohen still contrasts his gruff vocals with sweet-voiced women - sometimes massed in choruses, often just either of his longtime collaborators Anjani Thomas and Sharon Robinson - and the songs are more likely to rely on keyboards than the acoustic guitars of his classic recordings from the '60s. First, the poetry: Cohen turns Lord Byron's poem "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" into a sexy slow jam and recites Frank Scott's "Villanelle for Our Time," gradually adding an improvisatory piano backing; then, by changing his inflections and adding Thomas's heavenly backing vocals, he turns it into a song. Cohen still takes his role as elder sage seriously: "On That Day" is his 9/11 opus, but it's a brief one at just over two minutes (most of these songs are brief), and "To a Teacher" and "The Faith" rely on biblical allusions and provocative rhetorical questions. But Cohen's sense of humor is more prominent than ever on Dear Heather. In "Because Of," he notes, "Because of a few songs wherein I spoke of their mysteries / women have been exceptionally kind to my old age," and delightful comic touches are imparted by his Jew's harp in "Nightingale" and his carefully enunciated diction in the title track. Dear Heather shows that this elder statesman still has some new tricks up his elegantly disheveled sleeves.

Steve Klinge - Barnes & Noble
 

 L y r i c s


Go No More A-Roving

So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.


Because Of

Because of a few songs
Wherein I spoke of their mystery,
Women have been
Exceptionally kind
to my old age.
They make a secret place
In their busy lives
And they take me there.
They become naked
In their different ways
and they say,
"Look at me, Leonard
Look at me one last time."
Then they bend over the bed
And cover me up
Like a baby that is shivering.


The Letters

You never liked to get
The letters that I sent.
But now you've got the gist
Of what my letters meant.
You're reading them again,
The ones you didn't burn.
You press them to your lips,
My pages of concern.
I said there'd been a flood.
I said there's nothing left.
I hoped that you would come.
I gave you my address.
Your story was so long,
The plot was so intense,
It took you years to cross
The lines of self-defense.
The wounded forms appear:
The loss, the full extent;
And simple kindness here,
The solitude of strength.
You walk into my room.
You stand there at my desk,
Begin your letter to
The one who's coming next.


Undertow

I set out one night
When the tide was low
There were signs in the sky
But I did not know
I'd be caught in the grip
Of the undertow
Ditched on a beach
Where the sea hates to go
With a child in my arms
And a chill in my soul
And my heart the shape
Of a begging bowl


Morning Glory

No words this time?
No words.
No, there are times when nothing can be done.
Not this time.
Is it censorship?
Is it censorship?
No, it's evaporation.
No, it's evaporation.
Is this leading somewhere?
Yes. We're going down the lane.
Is this going somewhere?
Into the garden.
Into the backyard.
We're walking down the driveway.
Are we moving towards....
We're in the backyard.
...some transcendental moment?
It's almost light.
That's right.
That's it.
Are we moving towards some transcendental moment?
That's right.
That's it.
Do you think you'll be able to pull it off?
Yes.
Do you think you can pull it off?
Yes, it might happen.
I'm all ears.
I'm all ears.
Oh the morning glory!


On That Day

Some people say
It's what we deserve
For sins against g-d
For crimes in the world
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York
Some people say
They hate us of old
Our women unveiled
Our slaves and our gold
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
But answer me this
I won't take you to court
Did you go crazy
Or did you report
On that day
On that day
They wounded New York


Villanelle For Our Time

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.
The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.
Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.
Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part.


There For You

When it all went down
And the pain came through
I get it now
I was there for you
Don't ask me how
I know it's true
I get it now
I was there for you
I make my plans
Like I always do
But when I look back
I was there for you
I walk the streets
Like I used to do
And I freeze with fear
But I'm there for you
I see my life
In full review
It was never me
It was always you
You sent me here
You sent me there
Breaking things
I can't repair
Making objects
Out of thoughts
Making more
By thinking not
Eating food
And drinking wine
A body that
I thought was mine
Dressed as Arab
Dressed as Jew
O mask of iron
I was there for you
Moods of glory
Moods so foul
The world comes through
A bloody towel
And death is old
But it's always new
I freeze with fear
And I'm there for you
I see it clear
I always knew
It was never me
I was there for you
I was there for you
My darling one
And by your law
It all was done


Dear Heather

Dear Heather
Please walk by me again
With a drink in your hand
And your legs all white
From the winter


Nightingale

Dedicated to Carl Anderson (1945-2004)

I built my house beside the wood
So I could hear you singing
And it was sweet and it was good
And love was all beginning
Fare thee well my nightingale
‘Twas long ago I found you
Now all your songs of beauty fail
The forest closes 'round you
The sun goes down behind a veil
‘Tis now that you would call me
So rest in peace my nightingale
Beneath your branch of holly
Fare thee well my nightingale
I lived but to be near you
Tho' you are singing somewhere still
I can no longer hear you


To A Teacher

Dedicated to A. M. Klein (1909-1972)

Hurt once and for all into silence.
A long pain ending without a song to prove it.
Who could stand beside you so close to Eden,
When you glinted in every eye the held-high
razor, shivering every ram and son?
And now the silent loony bin, where
The shadows live in the rafters like
Day-weary bats,
Until the turning mind, a radar signal,
lures them to exaggerate
Mountain-size on the white stone wall
Your tiny limp.
How can I leave you in such a house?
Are there no more saints and wizards
to praise their ways with pupils,
No more evil to stun with the slap
of a wet red tongue?
Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror
and rest because he had finally come?
Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.
I have entered under this dark roof
As fearlessly as an honoured son
Enters his father's house.


The Faith

Based on a Québecois folk song

The sea so deep and blind
The sun, the wild regret
The club, the wheel, the mind,
O love, aren't you tired yet?
The club, the wheel, the mind
O love, aren't you tired yet?
The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can't forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren't you tired yet?
The blood, the soil, the faith
O love, aren't you tired yet?
A cross on every hill
A star, a minaret
So many graves to fill
O love, aren't you tired yet?
So many graves to fill
O love, aren't you tired yet?
The sea so deep and blind
Where still the sun must set
And time itself unwind
O love, aren't you tired yet?
And time itself unwind
O love, aren't you tired yet?


Tennessee Waltz

I was dancing with my darlin'
to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
Introduced him to my loved one
and while they were waltzing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.
I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes I lost my little darlin'
The night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz.
She comes dancing through the darkness
To the Tennessee Waltz
And I feel like I'm falling apart
And it's stronger than drink
And it's deeper than sorrow
This darkness she's left in my heart.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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