Various Positions

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In 2004, jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux covered "Dance Me to the End of Love" on her album " Careless Love"; the version even became a hit in Brazil.

The use of synthesisers and Cohen's "new voice" would mark the beginning of a new era in Cohen's composing style and sound. Incidentally, there`s nothing in the booklet to tell you who is playing and singing with Cohen on VP, which is a shame. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression matches lyrics from the song: "goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift": C, F, G, A minor, F.But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song – it's not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity. Asked in 2001 by Mojo 's Sylvie Simmons about this period of inactivity, the singer replied, "My children were living in the South of France and I spent a lot of time visiting them. I've listened to it during a million (full)moonlit nights and sung some of its songs aloud again and again (and then some)!

As usual it is Cohen's strong lyrics (more poetry really) and the quality of his voice that holds the simple backing tunes together. This is an irrepressible, Jewish/Greek-sounding song I can imagine moving to, in soft inebriation, in a taverna somewhere crepuscular and warm. The unusually straightforward love song "Coming Back to You" was covered by both Trisha Yearwood and Martin L. The song was further covered by Antony and the Johnsons frontwoman Antony Hegarty for a 2005 documentary, I'm Your Man. The album opens with one of his best compositions, and a signature song since he wrote it and one he tends to begin concerts with: Dance Me To The End Of Love.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Various Positions is the seventh studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in December 1984 (and February 1985). Another alteration that Lissauer noticed was the remarkable change in Cohen's singing, with his voice having dropped about a minor third. Various Positions was eventually picked up by the independent label Passport Records, and the album was finally included in the catalogue in 1990 when Columbia released the Cohen discography on compact disc. Cryptic and spartan, the set continues in the eclectic vein of recent efforts, but with greater clarity and focus, resulting in an intriguingly diffuse collection ranging from the Serge Gainsbourg-esque pop of 'Dance Me to the End of Love' to the boozy, country-inflected 'The Captain.

Various Positions made the top ten in Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia, and fared modestly well in the United Kingdom. Released in 1985 Various Positions proved to be a transitional album for Cohen, poised halfway between the classic balladic style of Recent Songs and the cool electronic backing of I'm Your Man.Various Positions contains some of Cohen's best--"Dance Me To The End Of Love", "Coming Back To You" and a shortened, accusatory version of "Hallelujah", later covered to such majestic effect by Jeff Buckley .

Various Positions was produced by John Lissauer, who had been at the helm of Cohen's 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony. An hermetic, contemplative, wonderfully sung and played tour-de-force that will disarm and captivate the listener at first hearing. Various Positions was Leonard Cohen's first album of the 1980s, yet was in keeping with the rest of his albums in two important respects: one, it sounded absolutely nothing like anything else anyone else was doing; two, it was a compelling reason for anyone else dealing in songs of love and its loss to wonder why they were bothering. In 2010, producer John Lissauer revealed to Cohen biographer Anthony Reynolds that the drum track on the former is actually from the Casio keyboard the song had been composed on: "It didn't even have audio output so we had to mike it up.But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria .