New Skin for the Old Ceremony
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New Skin for the Old Ceremony was the Canadian poet, novelist, and songwriter Leonard Cohen's fourth studio album. On this album, he begins to evolve away from the rawer sound of his earlier albums, with violas, mandolins, banjos, guitars, percussion and other instruments giving the album a more orchestrated (yet simplistic) sound.
The original cover art for New Skin for the Old Ceremony was a rather sexual image of two winged and crowned beings, presumably angels, from the alchemical text Rosarium philosophorum. In at least one early edition of the album, his U.S. record label, Columbia Records, balked at this art, substituting a photo of Cohen.
A remastered CD was released in 1995.
Track listing
- All songs written by Cohen except where noted
- "Is This What You Wanted"
- "Chelsea Hotel #2" (words: Cohen, music: Cohen/Ron Cornelius)
- "Lover Lover Lover"
- "Field Commander Cohen"
- "Why Don't You Try"
- "There Is a War"
- "A Singer Must Die"
- "I Tried to Leave You"
- "Who by Fire"
- "Take This Longing"
- "Leaving Green Sleeves" (trad./Cohen)
Songs
"Chelsea Hotel", the precursor to "Chelsea Hotel #2", was only performed live. "Chelsea Hotel #2" refers to a sexual encounter in the Chelsea Hotel, probably New York City's most famous Bohemian hostelry. For some years, when performing this song live, Cohen would tell a story that made it clear that the person he was singing about was Janis Joplin. In a 1994 broadcast on the BBC, Cohen described that as "an indiscretion for which I'm very sorry, and if there is some way of apologising to the ghost, I want to apologise now, for having committed that indiscretion." [link] Lloyd Cole covered the song on the Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan.Cohen's former bandleader and guitarist Ron Cornelius says he co-wrote the tune with him during an eight-hour airplane trip. He is listed as co-writer in the BMI database but not with the U.S. Copyright Office or on any Cohen record. According to Cornelius, the song was re-copyrighted as #2 in order to leave him out of the credits. He hired a music attorney and was paid $8,500 for not pursuing the case. [link] Following the discussion about Cornelius's claims, Cohen and Cornelius met in March 2006 after twenty years. "His memory is better than mine. From now on, let it be known we wrote Chelsea Hotel together", Cohen wrote to [Leonard Cohen Forum].
"A Singer Must Die" was covered by the Irish art rock group Fatima Mansions on I'm Your Fan.
In concert, a prolonged "I Tried to Leave You" was sometimes used to introduce the band. The 14-minute rendition from the 1985 Montreux Jazz Festival even featured extra lines given to the backup singers.
"Who by Fire" explicitly relates to Cohen's Jewish roots, echoing the words of the Kaddish and sung as a duet with Janis Ian (also Jewish; her birth name was Janis Eddy Fink). It was covered by House of Love on I'm Your Fan.
"Leaving Green Sleeves" is a reworking of the 15th-century folk song "Greensleeves". Cohen retains the chord progression and the words of the first two verses, but changes the melody and takes the latter verses in a different direction than the original.
Musicians
- Leonard Cohen, guitar, vocals, producer
- John Lissauer, woodwinds, keyboards, backup vocals, producer, arranger
- Emily Bindiger, backup vocals
- Gerald Chamberlain, trombones
- Erin Dickins, backup vocals
- Lewis Furey, viola
- Ralph Gibson, guitar
- Armen Halburian, percussion
- Janis Ian, vocals
- Gail Kantor, backup vocals
- Jeff Layton, banjo, mandolin, guitar, trumpet
- Barry Lazarowitz, percussion
- Roy Markowitz, drums
- John Miller, bass
- Don Payne, bass
Songs for Rebecca
Shortly after this album, co-producers Lissauer and Cohen proceeded to work on its follow-up, Songs For Rebecca, which was abandoned after one side was completed. Five songs are known from their live performances during the North American tour of November 1975; they were reworked and recorded few years later – two of them with Phil Spector for Death of a Ladies' Man in 1977, and the other three on Recent Songs in 1979.External links
- [Album lyrics], from The Leonard Cohen Files
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