Monday Mix Tapes: Autumn Leaves, Old Ideas

Leonard Cohen made it hard for me to work today.

This Monday started like many do in late September—sun pouring through the leaves, green but tinged with the hints of yellow, orange, and amber soon to come; a slight briskness in the air that hints at the cold soon to come; and me visiting NPR First Listen and squealing with glee at the albums soon to come.

At the top of the First Listen page, there's a black-and-white shot of Lucinda Williams, badass as ever in her leather jacket, heavy eyeliner, and a look in her eyes like she’s either just knocked out a man or put back a double shot of bourbon, maybe both. (Lucinda, I'll get to you soon!)

I scrolled down: Perfume Genius! Mapei! Sondre Lerche! And finally, LEONARD COHEN.

Because Mapei has one of the catchiest pop songs I’ve heard in quite some time (“Don’t Wait”), I listened to her album first. And while I think the reviewer got a bit heavy-handed with the whole theme of ear-candy/candy/pop music/sugar, “Don’t Wait” certainly has that “kick of cayenne” that makes a caramel go from merely tasty to memorably delicious. Which is to say, okay, I get it. Overall, it’s definitely a pop album I’ll return to, even though the second half starts to feel a bit flat, and I could really do without the majority of Mapei's rapping.

Back to Leonard. Prior to his 2012 album, Old Ideas, I was a scattered and halfhearted fan at best. I realize of course that this admission would make most Leonard Cohen fans snort, or pat me on the head and say, “Okay, dear.” That said, ask me how many fucks I give, now as well as then. I was too busy, at the time I was falling in love with Old Ideas, writing lyrics from “Different Sides” in my journal and committing them to heart (“Both of us say there are laws to obey/but frankly, I don’t like your tone/You want to change the way I make love/I want to leave it alone”).

I fell in love with the low growl of his voice, his lyrics (!), and his backup singers. I listened again and again. I revisited his old songs, the albums I’d once listened to halfheartedly, and marveled at my former self. Who was I, that I wasn’t enthralled by “Dance Me to the End of Love,” “In My Secret Life,” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”? I guess it’s no different, really, than how I now cringe at the memory of the Good Charlotte poster that hung in my college dorm room in 2002.

Our tastes change and adapt over time. Today the trees outside my Chicago window are full of yellow- and orange-tinted green leaves, but too soon, there will only be bare branches. Leonard Cohen’s voice sounds pretty much nothing at all on both Old Ideas and Popular Problems like it did in 1969 on Songs from a Room.

It feels fitting that the 80-year-old musician—yes, he turned 80 years old, yesterday, Wikipedia informs me—would release his latest album, Popular Problems, in the fall. A season, that for me at least, marks some of my happiest and saddest memories, and for those of us in Chicago, some of our last days of warmth as another winter looms. As I wrote several years ago, “the air has that crisp, cool feel once again. It's my favorite time of year, but it also makes me feel homesick as well. Not even homesick, exactly, but more like longing for something lost, a place that no longer really exists.”

Of course, Leonard puts it better, on one of my favorite tracks from the album, "Did I Ever Love You?":

Was it ever settled
Was it ever over
And is it still raining
Back in November
The lemon trees blossom
The almond trees wither
Its spring and its summer
And its winter forever


This album is packed with songs that tackle everything from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to torture, killing, and all “my bad reviews,” and even though it—tragically—is a mere 36 minutes long, Leonard’s clearly in no hurry. After all, he kicks off the album with “Slow,” a song that feels equal parts sexy and self-deprecating, and all parts fucking terrific.

The seasons will change, as will my tastes and probably yours, but I can guarantee that my still-recently acquired love of Leonard Cohen is here to stay.

“It’s almost like salvation; it’s almost like the blues.”



Popular Problems comes out tomorrow. 

A Morning Walk

I turned my heel walking to work this morning. I'm wearing these new boots, and they don't even have a high heel—just a slight one. But they're slightly loose around the ankle, and as I was walking too fast, my heel turned, and I lost my balance.

I didn't fall; I wasn't hurt; no one saw. Still, my face flushed with embarrassment and my heart sank a little bit. It's so ridiculous. It wasn't a big deal at all.

But to me, it just felt like another small example of how I fail at all these simple things so many other adults seem to intuitively grasp. You know, like walking. Why am I so hard on myself? I regained my balance, took a deep, slightly shaky breath, and grabbed the railing as I walked up the stairs.

The season is changing, and the air has that crisp, cool feel once again. It's my favorite time of year, but it also makes me feel homesick as well. Not even homesick, exactly, but more like longing for something lost, a place that no longer really exists.

This morning, before I turned my heel, and before I let my confidence shatter over something so small and so silly, I sat on the train next to this woman reading The New York Times. She held the paper, and even her head, exactly the way my mother did when she read the paper at the kitchen table. I had my New Yorker out to read, but I just let it sit on my lap, strangely contented by this complete stranger who looked nothing like my mother, but read the paper in the exact same way.

I felt a little sad as I got off at Clark and Lake and started walking to the office. There's a small part of me that keeps telling myself, "Someday, you won't miss her so much," but there's another part that holds on to the feeling, tight, because it's all I have of her now. I clutched my phone in my hands and wished away the desperate part of me that so badly wanted to call my mother, and that's when, lost in my thoughts, I turned my heel and almost fell down.

I know I won't stop missing her. It's constant, and expected, like the inevitable turn of the season. Today, I guess, it's just like that crisp, cool feel of the beginnings of fall—you feel a chill that you haven't in some time, but it's not entirely unpleasant. And just as I start to feel like I'm a little too cold, I turn the corner, the sun hits my face, and I'm warm again.