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I recently purchased Field Commander Cohen on eBay and have been playing it ever since. The CD features live performances by Cohen, Jennifer Warnes, and many other fine musicians in 1979, but the CD mastering was done in 2000, more than 20 years later. The result is fine fidelity to performances that were masterful and moving. The CD has many of his early hits, songs that feature lyrics (really, poems) with penetrating insights, evocative imagery and Cohen's heartfelt and spare singing style along with great instrumentalism, such as great bass work by Roscoe Beck, Mandoline and Oud (a middle eastern stringed instrument) by John Bilezikjian, and violin by Raffi Hakopian. At first, my favorites were the songs I knew best from the studio recordings - "Bird on a Wire," "So Long Marianne," "Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye" - but as I've listened to the CD, the title track - Field Commander Cohen, has begun to stand out as a great statement of Leonard Cohen's theme of artist as a soldier against the great, impersonal corporate society at large. Listen to the song yourself, and you'll love lines like "Field Commander Cohen ... parachuting acid into diplomatic cocktail parties." And then, "like a man, come back to nothing special such as waiting rooms and ticket lines, and silver bullet suicides and messianic ocean tides, and racial roller coaster rides." Produced by Leanne Ungar, this CD comes highly recommended by yours truly, a guy who has loved Cohen but has also seen a more tedious side. With this CD I have come back squarely into Cohen's camp. By the way, I also recently purchased "The Essential Leonard Cohen" and will review that too - once I'm done absorbing "Field Commander Cohen." Cheers!Read full review
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