In modern music it is commonplace for ageing performers to attempt to prove that they have a lust for life capable of defying gravity’s pull. But one of the striking things about this always striking album is just how unvarnished is the sound of its creator’s relative fragility: "I love to speak with Leonard, he’s a sportsman and shepherd," sings the narrator on Going Home, before adding, "He’s a lazy bastard living in a suit." On the second line Cohen’s voice cracks with such emphasis as to suggest this suit might be one of the last he wears. For a man with a gleam in his eye of such impishness as to make Sir Les Patterson seem decorous, this is startling stuff indeed.
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