Leonard Cohen looked a little like a guest star from “The Sopranos” on his 2008-09 world tour, and his band, dressed to match in dark suits and fedoras, appear cast to play at a Mob wedding. A wizened figure under a hat pulled low against his forehead, Cohen often sang with eyes closed as if by heart. A selection of 12 performances from Israel, Europe, Canada and the U.S. are collected on a Blu-ray disc, Songs from the Road.
His voice has grown more gravelly and his persona has assumed even greater gravity—a melancholy force lightened on a pair of more recent Americana-tinged numbers, “Heart with no Compassion” and “That Don’t Make it Junk.” Mostly, the mood is reflective, more elegiac than ebullient. In classics such as “Lover, Lover, Lover,” “Bird on the Wire” and “Suzanne,” the words carry Talmudic dimensions, each one a key to a world of unspoken possibility. Accompanied by a trio of angelic sings and a band comfortable with the elastic arrangements, Cohen sounds like the very voice of experience as he essays the mysteries of love—secular, sexual and divine.
