LEONARD COHEN
Can’t Forget
Columbia Records

www.columbiarecords.com
 

Just months after Leonard Cohen released Popular Problems, with very little warning, as well as the sumptuous three CD + DVD Live In Dublin set, here comes Can’t Forget, a collection of ten selections recorded during Cohen’s 2012-2013 world tour. Surprisingly it debuts two new songs “Never Gave Nobody Trouble” and “Got a Little Secret.” There are two covers in Georges Doc’s “La Manic” sung in French and “Choices,” a late 1990s George Jones song. Performances of “Field Commander Cohen,” “I Can’t Forget,” “Light as the Breeze,” “Joan of Arc” and an especially haunting “Night Comes On” are included along with the concert closer “Stages,” a recitatif interpolating some of “Tower of Song” closes the album.

Neither of the two new Cohen songs are major additions to the Cohen canon. “Never Gave Nobody Trouble” is a grumbling blues and “Got a Little Secret” sounds suspiciously like Leonard based it on Elizabeth Cotton’s “Shake Sugaree.”

The recording quality is superb, and the band and angel choir voices are all excellent as has become the standard for a Cohen ensemble.

In the end Can’t Forget is a nice if minor addition to Cohen’s oeuvre, one for the fans. The album’s subtitle A Souvenir of the Grand Tour couldn’t be more on target.

— Michael Tearson