Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man

Even the production, laden with synthesized strings and cooing female choruses, is wry on I'm Your Man, a definitive Leonard Cohen album. Though still touched with the tragic ("Take This Waltz," based on a Garcia Lorca poem), the album often achieves its high points by combining Cohen's world-weariness with black-humored evocations of social and romantic ills and artistic quandaries. "I was born like this, I had no choice," the gravelly Cohen intimates at disc's end. "I was born with the gift of a golden voice." --Rickey Wright Amazon.com

He's my Man

Sooooo good Leonard Cohen. The intonations, the suggestions, the words. He's my Man. I'll share him with Joplin in the Chelsea anytime. July 18, 2008

A mixed bag here, with a gem or two...

For my taste, 'Ain't No Cure for Love" is the keeper on this CD, but I have friends who like "First We'll Take Manhattan" or "I'm Your Man" or "Tower of Song" better. I like the last three better by artists other than Leonard, and in fact, "Ain't No Cure" is even done better by Jennifer Warnes. As with most Cohen albums I've heard over 40 years, his love lyrics, happy or sad, are his strong suit. Overall, this is weaker than "Various Positions" and I recommend that one, and also his Greatest Hits stuff from the '60's and '70's, ahead of "I'm Your Man." May 27, 2008

The album that will convert you, if you weren't already there

I am both young enough and old enough (at 37) to remember what a shock it was when this album came out. The shock consisted in Leonard Cohen making a really cool album.

I mean, for those of us who had been teenagers in the 80s, Leonard Cohen was just about the opposite of cool. He represented something, we weren't quite sure what because few of us had actually listened to him, but it certainly wasn't good melodies, effortlessly slick production and mountains of attitude. We were, let's face it, ignorant and shallow. There was already a wealth of great music recorded by Mr. Cohen before this album came out, but our ears had been dulled by terrible 80s pop music and we had never listened to it. It so happened that this album was in an idiom familiar enough to be acceptable, but was also deep, dark, strange, sardonic and, at times, heartbreaking enough to stop us in our tracks.

If I had to play somebody something to convince them that Leonard Cohen is, at the very least, one of the most lovably cool and funny and romantic singer/songwriters out there, it would be this album. There's not a dud track on it, which is more than you can say about some of his earlier work. 'First We Take Manhattan' is superbly menacing; 'Jazz Police' is nightmarish and flip at the same time; 'Take This Waltz' will bring a tear to your eye; 'I'm Your Man' is as gruff a love song as I've ever heard; 'Tower of Song' is just one of those songs that's so grimly funny as to be beyond criticism.

Fans could argue, with some justice, that there are other albums that are more representative of the man, or which are less sardonically amused and more tragic, or which have just more classic tracks on them, but this is still one of Mr. Cohen's finest albums, a beautifully wary marriage of Armani form and rag-and-bone-shop-of-the-heart content. If you know his work you already know this, so what are you waiting for. If you don't, and associate Leonard Cohen with depressing acoustic guitar ballads - well, you've got him a bit wrong, but in any case you will find nothing like that here. Check this out and let your head and heart open up the lines of communication once more. January 10, 2008

Ageless, Cryptic Musings from the Master

I would classify this album as one of three essential audio works by the great social poet/trubador, Mr. Cohen. The others being "The Future", and his much older combined works, "The Very Best of Leonard Cohen".
This is quite simply some of the greatest social commentary put to music. Cohen's message is at once both cryptic and poignant, but always engaging.
The music is perhaps not as consistently great as that of "The Future", (not everyone will care for some of the 80's synth work, however it is one of the "guilty pleasures" I enjoy about this album)yet there is only one weak song (Jazz Police) among the group included here.
Personal favorites are the ominous "First We Take Manhattan"; the all-time stand-out, "Everybody Knows", which skewers the state of affairs in our repressed culture; the title track which has plenty of dark comedy infused,; and the slow closer, "Tower of Song".
Lyrical quotes abound, but one of my favorites is from "Everybody Knows",
"Everybody knows that the deal is rotten, old black Joe still pickin' cotton, for your ribbons and bows, and everybody knows." True that.
Twenty years later, the music may have aged a bit, but the social commentary rings as true now as it ever did.
Highly recommended for anyone who likes a little intelligence infused with their music. December 1, 2007

Ain't no cure for love !

I first heard Leonard Cohen's song in movie " Love at Large ". Loved it.
Went on line to find out about him and listen to a few clips of his songs.
Bought " I'm your man " and have introduced it to friends and Family. March 9, 2007

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