'Embrace and hold us tight, all your children dressed in rags of light'

Review of VARIOUS POSITIONS by Pieter Uys

This 1984 album, the last of Cohen's folk masterpieces and one subtly spiced with
country, never grows stale due to the intricacy of its arrangements - vocal & instrumental
- while perennially revealing deeper layers of metaphysical & symbolic significance.

Or as one ages one understands better! Particularly sublime is the interaction of male &
female vocals calibrated to bring out the best in both. The devotion and the vocals of
Anjani Thomas and Jennifer Warnes make a major contribution to the music's enduring
beauty.

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Cohen's gift of melody & rhythm finds buoyant expression in Dance Me to the End Of
Love which may sound catchy and even frisky like a simple pop tune but if one pays
attention multiple meanings & possibilities emerge. In contrast, Coming Back to You
unfolds slowly and solemnly through a graceful melody wed to imagery that navigates
delicately between romantic & divine love. The two tracks The Law and The Night
Comes On evoke something of John Berryman's poetic sensibility ... The Moon and the
Night and the Men, The Song of the Tortured Girl and above all, Sonnet number 34 (*1
below)

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The Night Comes On may be the absolute highlight of this album, a rare gem ranking
amongst the greatest of Cohen's songs. Like assembling a pearl necklace, it strings
striking images of the domestic & personal, the universal, the spiritual, historical and
prophetic on a thread of longing. As the song unfolds, the symbolism unleashes an almost
supernatural power that stirs the psyche hinting at or conjuring vague specters of ancient
memories. There are close correspondences in the song Anthem on The Future.

Being familiar with John Cale's soaring version of Hallelujah on the 1991 tribute album
I’m Your Fan and Jeff Buckley's on Grace, Cohen's own sounds somewhat monotone and
subdued, still beautiful but constrained within a narrow range compared to the
aforementioned. The tale of David & Batsheba that started with desire, led to murder & a
string of tragedies but was ultimately transformed into the redemptive, relies in the
songwriter's version on the atmosphere created by the female vocals rather than his voice.

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The words of the rhythmic lilting song The Captain with its tinkling piano, tangy country
flavor & ironic comment on "some country-western song" contain & conceal more than
they reveal as they undulate on the tune & the beat. Then the tempo drops for the cold &
alienating Hunter's Lullaby that in arrangement (not mood) resembles the 1979 album
Recent Songs.

The message is baffling but may refer to the subconscious impulses that isolate & lead us
astray. There is a sense of menace & desolation without the redemptive introspection of
The Beast In Me by Nick Lowe on his album The Impossible Bird.

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Cohen's mysticism, masked or open, infuses every song. It manifests most painfully in
Hunter's Lullaby & most inspiringly in The Law, The Night Comes On & The Captain
while in Heart With No Companion it shines like a thousand suns. The healing power can
go everywhere and reach anyone, only & exactly because it has been shattered. It recalls
the crack in everything that allows the light in on the aforementioned Anthem, a reference
to the shattering of the vessels as explained Tree of Life: Introduction to the Kabbalah of
Isaac Luria as preserved by Rabbi Vital, and less clearly in the Zohar.

The impassioned Heart With No Companion combines a lilting uptempo beat & hypnotic
tune with lyrics contemplating disillusionment, shattered dreams & immobilizing fear
exacerbated by a terrifying prophecy:

"Through the days of shame that are coming/through the nights of wild distress".

These negatives are all erased, however, by the lines:

"Now I greet you from the other side/Of sorrow and despair/With a love so vast and
shattered/It will reach you everywhere".

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The defiance expressed by:

"Though your promise count for nothing/You must keep it none the less"

is in fact the antidote to nihilism, affirming the primacy of Spirit and of the Word.

Land Of Plenty on Ten New Songs covers some of the same territory:

"For the Christ who has not risen/From the caverns of the heart/For what's left of our
religion/I lift my voice and pray/May the lights in the land of plenty/Shine on the truth
some day".

If Hunter's Lullaby seemingly submits to despair whilst Heart With No Companion

directly defies it, the final song is a prayer of intercession on an ancient pattern, the same
to which The Lord's Prayer conforms. With praise and reverence, If It Be Your Will
intercedes not only for the tormented souls in hell but for all the children in their "rags of
light," the remnants of the shattered vessels.

As a sung prayer it is as moving as Calling My Children Home performed by Emmylou

Harris on Spyboy although it is serene where Emmylou's song yearns with a burning
heartache. The one represents Rachel weeping for her children whilst the other calms the
tempest with trust in the Eternal Divine, knowing that Spirit in mercy overrules The Law
(of cause & effect).

Revisiting Anjani and Jennifer, I highly recommend the first's esoteric and inspired
album The Sacred Names (*2 below) on which she sings in Hebrew, Ancient Greek,
Aramaic, Portuguese & English and the second's sensitive interpretations of Cohen
compositions on her Famous Blue Raincoat, the Twentieth Anniversary edition that has
been enhanced by four extra tracks:

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The Night Comes On

Ballad of the Runaway Horse

If It Be Your Will

& Joan of Arc live in Antwerp where the Novecento Orchestra, West Brabants
Operakoor & De Tweede Adem support Jenny & her band, adding depth to Cohen's elegy
for the Maid of Orleans.

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*1 JOHN BERRYMAN

Sonnet 34 (The last 7 lines)

Or like some outcast ancient Jew to say:

'There is Judea: in it Jerusalem:

In that the Temple: in the Temple's inmost

Holy of holies hides the invisible Ark -

There nothing - there all - vast wing beating dark -

Voiceless, the terrible I AM - the lost

Tables of stone with the Law graved on them!'

*2 Excerpt from Track Number 2 on THE SACRED NAMES by Anjani Thomas

Yehoyakim (The Lord sets up)

Yehoyada (The Lord knows)

Yehoram (The Lord is exalted)

Yehohanan (The Lord is gracious)