When I was young, this album had an enormous impact on my life. While enduring a love affair gone horribly wrong, somehow these songs gave me comfort, strength, and inspired me to simply endure what felt like the end of the world. Oh, I ate and ate and ate, until I could not eat another plate. Have I had enough my Lord? Far from being the music of suicides, I think this album helped me to avoid the noose. I think it was through Cohen that I discovered the tradition depicted by St John of the Cross in "The Dark Night of the Soul". Loss, pain, and suffering puts one's character into a crucible. Spiritual evolution is a roller coaster. One discovers that the soul has a life of its own, and sometimes must shed it's skin if it is to grow, in it's own serpentine fashion.(When your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn) Cohen clearly knows whereof he speaks, and is not just inventing clever little lyrics for commercial appeal. He means what he says. The overall effect is sort of European in flavor, and sort of resonates against Weill and Brecht. I appreciate his entire body of work, regard him as a personal hero, but have a special reverence for this particular recording. It is full of gnostic parables about loss and wounding and alienation, healing, damnation, and salvation, and is ultimately, hopeful.
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