As in all of Cohen’s music and poetry, the apocalyptic situations the singer describes in Old Ideas are counterbalanced by pronouncements of faith and the kind of gallows humor that Dante might have enjoyed while taking a break from writing the Inferno. When he sings “I’d love to speak with Leonard, he’s a sportsman and a shepherd, he’s a lazy bastard living in a suit” as he does on “Going Home,” it’s easy to laugh, but it’s not the kind of laugh that comes from enjoying a free and willowy life; rather it’s the uneasy chuckle that comes just before the roller coaster flies off the rails. It’s the laugh that comes when all hopes are dashed and options are few.
There is certainly no shortage of songs of despair out there for people to listen to, but what distinguishes Cohen’s latest effort is the depth of the compassion and the breadth of vision that gives perspective to the individual suffering he describes. Despite accusations to the contrary, Cohen has never been content to wallow in the type of self-centered despair that is only appropriate for a much younger man. Maturity has left him with no one to blame and no way to let himself off the hook. This sad (or liberating, depending on your perspective) situation is best described in “Amen,” the seven-minute tour de force that forms the nucleus of Old Ideas as Cohen continues to look for respite when he sings “Tell me again when the victims are singing and the laws of remorse are restored/ tell me again that you know what I’m thinking but vengeance belongs to the Lord.” Salvation isn’t easy. Angels may be “scratching at the door to come in,” but in the end Cohen insinuates that each of us is alone and left to tend as best we can with the fallout arising from our own actions.
During Leonard Cohen’s last world tour, the singer re-interpreted many of his songs with gorgeous, elaborate musical arrangements that transformed and elevated their effect. On Old Ideas—as on most of his studio records—Cohen opts for a skeletal musical soundtrack where the melodies and instrumentation are often no more insistent than the brushing of branches against a window in the wind. All of the attention and emphasis is directed towards Cohen’s voice as each rasped syllable from his scarred old Methuselah of a throat creates a depth and intimacy that is both horrible and delightful.
Old Ideas isn’t likely to win Leonard Cohen any new fans. It’s too intense, too raw—the skin has been flayed right off the bones of each of these songs—for it to attract the easy listening crowd and too musically subdued for the average rock fan. But for his old fans and those new listeners with a sympathetic turn of mind, Old Ideas builds on the promise of his recent world tours and return to the limelight with his strongest, most unified album in decades. To follow Cohen through these songs as he shadows the thousand points of light he senses emerging from the darkness is as exhilarating and profound an experience as one will likely ever have with popular music. Beauty and horror rest side by side in what may be the most perfect album 2012 has to offer. In an era of hype and hyperbole where such a word has lost its meaning, Old Ideas is in the truest sense a masterpiece.
