LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

Recent Songs is the sixth studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in 1979. It was a return to Cohen's acoustic folk music after the Phil Spector experimentation of Death of a Ladies' Man, (MOVLP476) but now with many Jazz and Oriental influences.

The album includes Gypsy violin player Raffi Hakopian, and even a Mexican Mariachi band. Long-time Cohen collaborator Jennifer Warnes prominently appears in vocal tracks. Members of the band Passenger played on four of the songs and Garth Hudson of The Band also appeared on the album. "Came So Far for Beauty" seems to be an unaltered outtake from the unfinished 1975 album Songs for Rebecca, which also included early versions of "The Traitor" and "The Smokey Life" (then with music by John Lissauer).

"Ballad of the Absent Mare"'s metaphoric lyrics are based on the twelfth-century Ten Bulls (or Ten Ox-herding Pictures). The song is covered by several artists, notably Emmylou Harris on the album Cowgirl's Prayer (as "Ballad of a Runaway Horse").

This album comes with a lyric sheet.

• 180 grams audiophile vinyl
• Insert
• Leonard Cohen will be touring Europe from August 2012 - October 2012

Tracklisting:

A1 The Guests 
A2 Humbled In Love   
A3 The Window   
A4 Came So Far For Beauty
A5 The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien Errant)

B1 The Traitor  
B2 Our Lady Of Solitude 
B3 The Gypsy's Wife  
B4 The Smokey Life
B5 Ballad Of The Absent Mare