Great Moments on Video №8: Leonard Cohen – Tower Of Song

(The O2 Arena, London, July 17, 2008)

Leonard Cohen – Tower Of Song

(The O2 Arena, London, July 17, 2008)

It’s actually very difficult to define what the phrase «to age gracefully» means when applied to popular artists. Unless they’re really small fish who decide they have a better future waiting for them in gardening or business consulting, few of them retire from the profession upon reaching middle age, and even fewer, like John Lennon or all of the Ramones, have their problem taken care of by someone or something else. The rest just go on and on while the aging process gradually strips them from both their physical and mental capacities until they become faint (and at least theoretically laughable, if you’re in a mean mood) shadows of their former selves. It is true that the «window of acceptability» has significantly shifted over the past quarter century: from "never trust anybody over thirty" to poking fun at the fossilized 50-year old Rolling Stones putting out their ridiculous reunion albums to the world pretty much going nuts over any reunion tours in the 21st century, even if it’s a horribly looking Phil Collins in a wheelchair. We’ve generally become kinder and more compassionate in this respect, like any true Christian probably should, and that’s a good thing.

Still, when everybody who truly matters is dead and gone — and that time comes closer and closer, what with Christine McVie, Jeff Beck, and David Crosby all lingering on in my recent memory, soon, no doubt, to be joined by others — it is hardly debatable that most of these heroes shall be remembered by what they did, how they looked and acted like in their «prime» rather than in their later years. And most of the time this is not even because Abusive Father Time took away their good looks, their vocal ranges, the dexterity in their fingers, the innovative potential of their brain; mostly, this is because they failed to take a good look at themselves and adapt to their own shortcomings. There does come a time when you can no longer hit that high C, or do that stage pirouette, or play with the same level of noisy aggression you did in your youth; this is when you should be coming to terms with both yourself and the age you are living in — that is, provided you still want to be loved and respected in the future for what you did at 70 the same way you will be for what you did at 25. It’s no crime if you do not do that, but then do not expect people to treat your fading years with any more respect than they are willing to pay to, say, Elvis Presley around 1977.

How many artists can I think of who truly «act their age» and make wise adjustments to their later year artistic images? Almost none. One of the saddest DVD experiences I’ve ever sat through was The 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Concerts (2009) — where, one by one, the great heroes of rock’n’roll emerged upon the stage to perform their greatest hits and you could hardly watch even a single performance without either a grin of embarrassment or a wad of tears in your eyes. Perhaps the people in the audience were having a great time — after all, the general ambience of the occasion provides a completely different perspective — but watching that stuff as an outsider only made me wish to be able to afford all these nice people, most of whom I so dearly love, a one-way trip to Miami.

Of course, far be it from me to judge or make arrogant (and useless) demands: there’s always the factor of a loving bond between an artist and their audience, and if it’s therapeutic for the artist and still exciting for the audience, keep those new albums and concerts pumping. But still, it’s interesting and important to ask — who can ever look totally natural and endearing at an old age, and how? Who by fire, who by water? Who by very slow decay? Who shall I say is calling?

Of course, Leonard Cohen had it somewhat easier than most, since he was never a rock’n’roll star in the first place — one might say that he hardly had anything to lose other than his poetic wit and his rugged Jewish charm, things that could go away only if he had dementia or anything like that. But he, too, went through a wobbly period of mid-life crisis, and, for instance, I don’t really enjoy watching any of his televized live performances from the 1980s — there are just too many moments there where it actually feels as if he’s having a real bad time seeing his youth slip away, and instinctively tries to overcompensate for it (in his own ways, of course), throwing himself off balance and sometimes murdering his own songs in the process.

It is all the more astounding to read that he largely went on his 2008–2010 tour to cover up his financial difficulties and that, had his financial manager not swindled him out of an entire fortune, that tour might never have happened — because hardly anything about the brilliant Live In London DVD would suggest that Leonard is not absolutely happy to be where he is at the moment, or that he has not fully come to terms with himself, his age, his inner demons, and his audience about what he is going to do on stage and how he is going to do it. There is not really a lot of footage from Cohen’s younger days (probably the most complete and high-quality known performance is from the Isle of Wight in 1970), but I dare say that it just might be the 73-year old Leonard Cohen of Live In London that will go on to exemplify the artist for as long as the world thinks it still needs to remember who Leonard Cohen ever was and what he did for all of us.

Just about every performance from the show is wonderful, but it can be noticed by looking at the setlist that Cohen was absolutely not interested in prioritizing his early catalog over the songs written in his fifties and sixties; in fact, if it’s ‘Suzanne’ and ‘Bird On The Wire’ that you are primarily interested in rather than ‘The Future’ or ‘Hallelujah’, the show might not work nearly as well as it’s intended to. That stuff from the Eighties and Nineties was typically more pop-oriented and simplistic, both musically and lyrically, than the early, acoustic, poetically dense and often impenetrable songs; it also suffered from corny electronic arrangements and sometimes exaggerated vocal deliveries, particularly uncomfortable because of the rapidly aging voice. Yet here, in 2008, most of that stuff has aged like really fine wine, and you can see that Leonard is visibly more comfortable singing it than trying to put yet another spin on the oldest of his classics. I can never imagine myself going to an Aerosmith concert while yearning to hear ‘Love In An Elevator’ over ‘Toys In The Attic’; here, I sometimes catch myself wishing that he’d get over ‘Bird On The Wire’ so that I could finally hear ‘Everybody Knows’.

For a particular example from the show, I ultimately decided to concentrate on ‘Tower Of Song’, which is quite a crowd favorite but still nowhere near the level of popularity of ‘Hallelujah’, and also because its drama is largely hushed and quiet as opposed to the soul-on-sleeve pathos of ‘Hallelujah’ — not that Cohen can’t handle soul-on-sleeve pathos, but «hushed and quiet» is more or less his default mode of action, and if you only like those Cohen songs which would make a great vehicle for Jeff Buckley, this means you’re immune to like 90% of the man’s charm. Although the events of 2023, for quite a while, made me revisit ‘The Future’ and ‘First We Take Manhattan’ far more frequently than anything else, on the larger scale of things it is ‘Tower Of Song’ that I find myself revisiting over and over and over — not just the finest combination of soul, sadness, nostalgia, and intelligent self-irony throughout the show, but also a great lesson on how to cope with your own deficiencies and to perfectly handle your audience.

Back in the Eighties, Leonard had gotten quite a bit of flack for his somewhat clumsy endorsement of electronics — not that he was singled out from a multitude of his peers or anything, but it was particularly odd, perhaps, to see him trade in his classic acoustic sound for synthesizers and programmed drums. Yet when you zoom in on individual songs, rather than just get angry with the musical transition as a whole, it turns out that much, if not most, of the time, the electronic backing makes sense — it’s not there because «the times demand it», it’s there because the song demands it. Here, he already introduces his Technics synthesizer with a humorous theatrical gesture — "I don’t want anyone to get alarmed, I know they’ve probably never seen one of these before, but it goes by itself" — which is supposed to symbolize the man’s own humble confusion at the intangible wonders of technology, but also somehow agrees with the very spirit of the song, which also kinda sorta "goes by itself", in a way.

We do have some footage of Leonard trying to provide closure on his life story with ‘Tower Of Song’ back when the tune was fresh — here’s one from Spain in 1988, for instance, and one more from 1989 — but this is precisely the kind of song with potential to be written when you’re 50 and to reach full ripeness by the time you’re 70. It’s as if back then, neither Leonard’s voice nor even Leonard’s mind was yet completely ready for the settling of the score, but here we can fully appreciate the musical testament-like aura of the performance. There’s a sense of calm finality emanating even from the deep bass notes with which the man finishes each verse, not yet possible in 1988 (the "I hear him coughing, ALL NIGHT LONG" bit alone sends a tiny chill down my back, which never happens with earlier versions). And there’s a certain feeling of acceptance, of having made one’s peace with reality and with destiny — a feeling that permeates the entire show (which, by the way, offers plenty of healing power for those of us who are desperate about the world going to hell).

Of course, I wouldn’t have singled out the song if it didn’t have any specific high points, and here there are at least three. The first is at 1:15 into the performance, when Cohen plays his rudimentary little keyboard solo, gets an ovation from the audience, and replies "you’re very kind" with an amused smile. There’s a longer and somewhat more bitter version of his response on the Live In Dublin album from 2013: "Are you humoring me? I accept it, thank you. If these are the crumbs of compassion that you offer to the elderly, I am grateful" — and, come to think of it, he’s absolutely right, because these are the crumbs of compassion, in a way. Yet on the other hand, there is also something truly moving, in an almost mystical way, about the posture of the little 70-year old wiseman, minimalistically (and quite prettily) tinkering away on a keyboard; and actually, that little bluesy melody he plays is quite symbolic of the entire journey of life — there’s all of birth, childhood, maturity, and departure contained within its handful of bars. So perhaps there’s just a bit more to that ovation than the "crumbs of compassion", eh?

Right after that, at 1:52, there are the famous lines "I was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice" which also regularly get a great cheer from the audience (and don’t miss the happy grin on Lenny’s face in return!). This thing is largely self-explanatory, and the secret of this magic trick is very simple, but it still gets me every goddamn time. Only one question in my mind about it — could a Bob Dylan pull something like this? No. Even had he written this kind of line (which is not highly likely, because he’s not a big fan of writing such self-centered songs; even something like ‘I Contain Multitudes’ from his latest album is more in the vein of old school pompous bluesy hyperbole than confession), he would probably never get this kind of audience reaction because he’s not establishing this kind of contact with the audience; Cohen is that rare kind of introverted person who, instead of overpowering himself and going out into the world, is capable of opening a window into his own world to let other people in and share it. (There’s a heavily promoted story that at the 1970 Isle of Wight concert, Cohen was almost singlehandedly responsible for calming down the wild and angry hippie crowd upon taking the stage, and while this is most likely an exaggeration, I have no problem believing that it was true to some extent at least).

Finally, there’s the wonderful semi-improvised coda, which starts by poking a little fun at the repetitiveness of the backing vocals ("don’t stop!") and ends by gently deflating the seriousness of the whole experience. We’re not supposed to look for any deep symbolism here, of course, but I’m simply admiring the way Cohen has the entire audience around his finger without even so much as waving it — and this comes from somebody who usually detests «fan service» at rock and pop concerts. It’s difficult to doubt the sincerity of the kind and loving feeling the man expresses for the congregation below — even as those feelings are tempered by transparent notes of irony and sarcasm, which the congregation happily agrees to take in together with the love. It’s a kind of special charm reserved for the very, very few indeed.

Now that Leonard has finally been moved down the track, and probably got to finally hear from Hank Williams about how lonely can it get, I don’t even feel particularly sad about it — the likes of the Live In London show are as close to a final musical testament as it could ever be (even though the formally final testament would turn out to be the much more sinister You Want It Darker), and it gives you a feeling that here is a man who was lucky to have said and done everything he wanted or needed to in this life. The only sad thing is that there’ll probably never be anybody — not in our lifetime, at least — capable of giving us the same kind of emotional palette as Leonard does here, over the short course of six minutes.