Im Your Man

Only a few years prior to the 1988 release of *I\'m Your Man*, Leonard Cohen was no longer signed to Columbia Records in the United States. Yet, at 50-something, the Canadian poet staged a most unlikely artistic comeback with a song cycle as lyrically rich as his earliest, critically acclaimed work. The music corresponded perfectly, highlighted by shopping-mall keyboards and drum boxes (\"Tower of Song\") and disjointed back-up singers (\"Jazz Police\"). In this alienated environment, Cohen went to work less as a singer than a secret agent reporting on a world mesmerized by glitter and rouge. \"First We Take Manhattan\" is the opening *tour de force*, merging pillow talk with cosmopolitan crisis, whereas the hypnotic \"Everybody Knows\" rumbles with a refrain made menacing by Cohen\'s *basso profundo* growl. A romantic, he sings Federico García Lorca (\"Take This Waltz\") and offers \"Ain\'t No Cure For Love\" with the grace of an elder statesman.