Recent Songs

Recent Songs is Cohen's sixth studio album. After the chaos of Death of a Ladies' Man he produced it himself with Henry Lewy, who had worked with Joni Mitchell, and from this record on he co-produced his albums. It was recorded at A&M Studios in Hollywood in the spring of 1979. The players included the violinist Raffi Hakopian, the oud player John Bilezikjian, the string arranger Jeremy Lubbock, members of the band Passenger, Garth Hudson and a Mexican mariachi band. Jennifer Warnes and the newcomer Sharon Robinson sang backing vocals.

Ballad of the Absent Mare is based on the Ten Bulls pictures and on Joshu Sasaki's exposition of an early Chinese text. The Guests opened the 1983 TV musical I Am a Hotel, and the Lost Canadian is Cohen's take on Un Canadien errant, an 1842 song by Antoine Gerin-Lajoie. Came So Far for Beauty comes from the abandoned Songs for Rebecca project, with John Lissauer credited as co-writer. The band that made the record toured with Cohen later in 1979, and highlights appeared in 2001 as Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979. Cohen told Mojo in 2001 that he liked Recent Songs best. The New York Times listed it among the top ten records of 1979 and Rolling Stone's Debra Rae Cohen called The Guests haunting, although Reynolds later judged it bland. It reached number 24 in Austria, where it went gold, and number 56 in Germany.