Cryptic and spartan, the set continues in the eclectic vein of recent efforts, but with greater clarity and focus, resulting in an intriguingly diffuse collection ranging from the Serge Gainsbourg-esque pop of 'Dance Me to the End of Love' to the boozy, country-inflected 'The Captain. The album was recorded at Quadrasonic Sound in New York in the summer of 1983 with Leanne Ungar engineering. I've Been a fan of this record ever since I heard "If it be your will" in the movie Pump on the Volume When I was a teenager.

it's curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that's why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. The pieces in Book of Mercy were coming and I was, slowly, writing the album that ended up as Various Positions. The song contains several biblical references, most notably evoking the stories of Samson and traitorous Delilah from the Book of Judges ("she cut your hair") as well as the adulterous King David and Bathsheba ("you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you").The best-known, and most-covered song on the album, however, is "Hallelujah", having been recorded by John Cale, Jeff Buckley (in one of the song's most acclaimed versions), and many others. It was the first time I could really see and intuitively feel what it was I was doing, making or creating in that enterprise.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. This explains the slight strain in Cohen's singing on the track; changing the key on the Casio would have meant altering the drum pattern that Cohen wanted to use (The song, which would become Cohen's perennial show opener, is performed in a lower key live). The Casio was a great discovery for Leonard because these machines allows you to put one finger down and have a whole band come back at you . Various Positions made the top ten in Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia, and fared modestly well in the United Kingdom.

Various Positions was eventually picked up by the independent label Passport Records, and the album was finally included in the catalogue in 1990 when Columbia released the Cohen discography on compact disc. situations, beginning perhaps (it isn`t spelt out) with a Mary the Madonna figure, then taking in a father, wife, lover, until the final verse by which time our narrator is getting on in years. An hermetic, contemplative, wonderfully sung and played tour-de-force that will disarm and captivate the listener at first hearing. Finally, a song that comes into its own live as well as on VP, the quietly sincere prayer, If It Be Your Will. Cohen wrote around 80 draft verses for the tune, with one writing session at the Royalton Hotel in New York where he was reduced to sitting on the floor in his underwear, banging his head on the floor.

Various Positions was produced by John Lissauer, who had been at the helm of Cohen's 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony.

I've listened to it during a million (full)moonlit nights and sung some of its songs aloud again and again (and then some)! The presence here of the single finest version (by anyone) of what must now be his most famous song, Hallelujah, is, appropriately enough, cause for celebration.