Various Positions

Review Summary: HALLELUJAH LAUGHING LENNYS LAST LAUGH

Review:

For those who don't know there are three versions of "Hallelujah"in the uk top forty,an awful soulless version at number one.the brilliant Jeff Buckley at two and Cohens version at Thirty three,and the amazing thing is it is not Cohens best song on this marvelous album,the master of melancholy has stuffed this album with classic songs "The law""Night comes on""The captain""Hunters Lullaby" and "If it be your will" are just as good.
This album was ignored when issued in 1994,and it is only with the success of H"hallelujah" that it is being recognised,ignore it anymore!!
A few years ago there was an excellent film called "The edukators",which featured Jeff Buckleys version of "hallelujah" on the closing credits,absolutely beautiful,but the original is still the best.
Three versions of the same song in the charts?, looks like Len has had the last laugh.

Review Summary: leonard cohen the legend!!

Review:

this album is fab hallialuah made me buy it but the whole album is fab buy it the story about hallialuah on radio2 thats how i got to hear of him he deserves much more regonition why hasant he? bob dylan does and i think leonard cohen is much better and his voice is better too!! alson get songs of leonard cohen from the 60s and songs of love and hate!! buy them you wont regret it ive also just recieved richard hawleys ladys bridge album fabalous too!!

Review Summary: TIMELESS

Review:

A great CD and well worth the 4 pounds I spent on it, after seeking high and low in every store here in Germany for it. It was the only CD missing in my Leonard Cohen collection and I regret not having gotten it earlier. Together with Jennifer Warnes and a fairly minimal orchestration Cohen proves once again he doesn't need a WALL OF SOUND to make a great CD.

Review Summary: The Other Side Of Sorrow And Despair

Review:

Cohen made three classic albums with John Lissaeur at the helm: 1974's New Skin For The Old Ceremony, 1979's Recent Songs, but at the apex of these achievements stands 1984's Various Positions, in that it paved the way for a new audience to discover Leonard Cohen afresh. This wasn't done by just adding the odd synthesised drone here and there, for there is the same continuity of themes and musical genres threaded consistently through the works (compare New Skin's 'Why Don't You Try?' or 'I Tried To Leave You' alongside Recent Songs' 'Came So Far For Beauty' or 'The Smokey Life', i.e., and you'll find they sit naturally next to tracks like 'Hallelujah' or 'Coming Back To You', whereas 'Night Comes On' and 'If It Be Your Will' would not have sounded out of place on Songs From A Room). What appears so much different about Various Positions is more to do with Cohen as an artist: he sounds rejuvenated and almost ready to make that protean leap towards making that one true classic that would positively redefine him for generations to come. I refer, of course, to I'm Your Man. I was recently tickled to read of a conversation around this time between Leonard and Bob Dylan, where Leonard asked Bob how long it took him to write 'I And I' from the album Infidels. "About ten minutes," was the forthright reply Bob gave. "How long did it take you to write 'Hallelujah'?" "Three or four years," deadpanned Cohen, later explaining: "it really took about five years, but I didn't want to look like I was dragging my heels or anything." The point being: you can appreciate the precision and care that Cohen took in recording certain tracks on Various Positions. 'Hallelujah', apparently, was whittled down from dozens of seperate verses, all presumably containing a unique rhyme such as 'do ya', 'overthrew ya', 'fool ya' (you get the picture), just as similarly 'Democracy' from The Future was whittled down from hundreds of different verses. This is craft of a higher order.
Elsewhere, we are treated to such gems as Dance Me To The End Of Love, one of those definitive mission statements that Cohen seems to throw out effortlessly, even though we know this can't possibly be the case. 'Coming Back To You' returns to Leonard's country roots with classic ambiguous imagery: is it literal, or devotional, or both? 'The Law' has a slight reggae lilt, and 'Night Comes On' is a masterpiece of darkness and shade. Side Two of the original kicks off with the masterful 'Hallelujah' and ends with the anthemic and positively hymnal 'If It Be Your Will', taking in faux-country ('The Captain'), dark nursery-rhyme ('Hunter's Lullaby'), and the celebratory 'Heart With No Companion' along the way. The whole proceedings presaged a huge seismic shift in the perception of Leonard Cohen as some doom-laden troubadour. Had he not gone on to record the collossal I'm Your Man, I feel many would have regarded this as his best by a long chalk since the first album. As it stands, Various Positions, remains Leonard's transitional masterpiece, and you can do lots worse than shell-out a fiver or less to have this in your collection.

Review Summary: Leonard Cohen at his best

Review:

This is one of my favourite Cohen CDs, as it has no tracks I tend to skip past. As usual it is Cohen's strong lyrics (more poetry really) and the quality of his voice that holds the simple backing tunes together. Being exposed to country music as a child by my father I particularly like, well love actually, 'The Captain' (he even gently mocks the format in the lyrics) but there other strong songs in there as well you may prefer, like 'The Law' or 'The night comes in' or 'Hallelujah' [yes, the fantastic song from Shrek written by LC & sung by Neil Diamond]. However I do find the superb track 'The night comes in' rather sad and uncomfortable listening [even more than 'The story of Isaac' on Songs from a room] - although music that's powerful enough to move you certainly can't be considered a bad thing. Cohen's words are often interestingly cryptic, moving and deeply reflective, rather than being outrightly political or 'protest'. If you are new to Leonard Cohen I'd also get the later 'I'm your man', plus perhaps 'The Future' and 'Songs from a room'. The recording quality of all these re-released Cohen CD's is very good, and this one is no exception. They are also great value when offered for under a fiver.