New Skin for the Old Ceremony
Cohen and Lissauer's album of Chelsea Hotel #2 and Who by Fire, with a roster of New York session players.
Leonard Cohen, 1974
- Released
- 30 August 1974
- Recorded
- February 1974
- Studio
- Sound Ideas Studio, New York
- Label
- Columbia
- Producer
- Leonard Cohen and John Lissauer
- Length
- 37:11
Players on the record include Janis Ian, Steve Gadd, Billy Cobham and Phil Collins. It reached number 24 in Britain, number 12 in Germany and number 2 in Austria, but did not enter the US Top 200.
It is Cohen's fourth studio album and went silver in the United Kingdom. The cover used an image from the alchemical text Rosarium philosophorum, and Columbia printed one early US edition with a photo of Cohen instead. In concert a long I Tried to Leave You was sometimes used to introduce the band. Chelsea Hotel #2 is about Janis Joplin. In a 1994 BBC broadcast Cohen said that telling people was an indiscretion for which he was very sorry. Leaving Green Sleeves reworks the sixteenth-century folk song Greensleeves and ends with Cohen screaming the chorus.
Cohen and Lissauer went straight on to a follow-up, Songs for Rebecca, which was abandoned after one side. Five of its songs were played on the North American tour of November 1975, and they were reworked later, two with Phil Spector for Death of a Ladies' Man and three on Recent Songs. Ian McCulloch's cover of Lover Lover Lover was a minor British hit in 1992.
Track listing
- Is This What You Wanted4:12
- Chelsea Hotel #23:04
- Lover Lover Lover3:18
- Field Commander Cohen4:04
- Why Don't You Try3:50
- There Is a War2:58
- A Singer Must Die3:16
- I Tried to Leave You2:36
- Who by Fire2:32
- Take This Longing4:04
- Leaving Green Sleeves2:39
Personnel
- Leonard Cohen vocals, guitar, Jew's harp, producer
- John Lissauer woodwinds, keyboards, backing vocals, producer, arranger
- Ralph Gibson guitar
- Jeff Layton banjo, mandolin, guitar, trumpet
- John Miller, Don Payne bass
- Lewis Furey viola
- Gerald Chamberlain trombones
- Janis Ian vocals
- Emily Bindiger, Erin Dickins, Gail Kantor backing vocals
- Steve Gadd, Billy Cobham, Phil Collins, Vinnie Colaiuta drums
- Armen Halburian percussion
More from Leonard Cohen
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971), Live Songs (1973), Death of a Ladies' Man (1977), Recent Songs (1979), Various Positions (1984), I'm Your Man (1988), The Future (1992), Ten New Songs (2001), Dear Heather (2004), Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems (2014), You Want It Darker (2016), Thanks for the Dance (2019)
Sources
- New Skin for the Old Ceremony, Wikipedia