“Love is not some kind of victory march,” Leonard Cohen intoned Tuesday while performing his classic song “Hallelujah.” But for Cohen, who has been away from the touring circuit since 1993, his first of two sold-out concerts at the Chicago Theatre was exactly that.

    He wore a black suit and snap-brim hat for the occasion, and dropped to one knee as if offering each of his songs up as a sacrament. 

    At age 74, the Canadian-born poet, novelist and songwriter supreme has never been more popular; when last he played Chicago, nearly 16 years ago, he was headlining a venue one-quarter of the size. Absence, it appears, has its benefits.

    Instead of continuing to make albums in the ‘90s, he spent six years in a monastery. And that monastic reserve pervaded his presentation, lending gravity and dignity to even the simplest gestures. When one of his musicians performed a solo, Cohen quietly removed his hat and stood enraptured. But it was all just window-dressing for some of the greatest songs of the last 40 years, 26 in all spread over three hours.

    In many of them, life can be one cruel ride, but somehow the narrator keeps paying the carny at the door for one more chance. God, if he exists at all, looks down on the whole thing with a bemused silence. The characters are worn-down wanderers who got more than they bargained for, and these songs are their moments of truth.

    The lyrics are sprinkled with biblical allusions and sexually charged imagery. Cohen’s readings suggested chain-smoking detectives in trench coats reading a murder report, then extrapolating the details, the circumstances, that would drive human beings to do such desperate things.

    Cohen’s presentation was meticulous, right down to the scripted between-songs patter. His nine-piece backing band consisted of able musicians who at times erred on the side of prettiness. The saxophone solos in particular sounded out of place, oozing sweetness.

    These arrangements had nothing to do with rock’s Southern, rhythm-oriented sound. Even the disco beat for “First We Take Manhattan” sounded ironic. Instead, this was dark, European fare, flavored by Spanish guitar and hymn-like chord changes. Cohen’s deadpan baritone suited the material perfectly, and singers Charley and Hattie Webb followed suit with a beautifully unadorned reading of “If it be Your Will.”

    “Tower of Song” was even more sparse, with an arrangement built on a pre-set keyboard rhythm that sounded straight out of a surreal “Blue Velvet” lounge. As this concert reiterated, Cohen’s songs are best served without extra seasoning. They’re that good.   

greg@gregkot.com

Leonard Cohen’s set list Tuesday at Chicago Theatre

First set:
1. Dance Me to the End of Love
2. The Future
3. Ain’t No Cure for Love
4. Bird on the Wire
5. Everybody Knows
6. In My Secret Life
7. Who by Fire
8. Chelsea Hotel #2
9. Waiting for the Miracle
10. Anthem

Second set
11. Tower of Song
12. Suzanne
13. The Gypsy’s Wife
14. The Partisan
15. Boogie Street
16. Hallelujah
17. I’m Your Man
18. A Thousand Kisses Deep
19. Take This Waltz

First encore
20. So Long, Marianne
21. First We Take Manhattan

Second encore
22. Famous Blue Raincoat
23. If It Be Your Will
24. Democracy

Third encore
25. I Tried to Leave You
26. Whither Thou Goest

    Leonard Cohen, who makes his first Chicago appearance in 15 years Tuesday and Wednesday at the Chicago Theatre, has written many great songs, but none rise higher than “Hallelujah.”

    It has been covered countless times since it first appeared on Cohen’s 1984 album, “Various Positions,” by everyone from Jeff Buckley and opera singer Katherine Jenkins to Bob Dylan and Swedish metal band Pain of Salvation. It has appeared in the soundtrack to the 2001 childrens movie “Shrek,” of all places, as covered by both John Cale and Rufus Wainwright. And it enjoyed a revival in 2008 when it was performed on “American Idol” by Jason Castro and on the British reality show “X Factor” by Alexandra Burke, whose version hit No. 1 in the U.K. and Ireland.

    It stands as Cohen’s greatest song, which is saying something, given that the Canadian poet and novelist has also written such classics as “Bird on the Wire,” “Suzanne,” “Tower of Song,” “So Long, Marianne,” “Sisters of Mercy” and “First We Take Manhattan.” Of the songwriters who brought poetry into the pop vernacular during the rock era, Cohen ranks at or very near the top alongside Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell, Chuck Berry, Patti Smith, Doc Pomus, Smokey Robinson, Randy Newman and a handful of others.

    Oddly enough, Cohen’s initial attempt to record the song was a dud, swathed in synthesizer gloss and a choir of background singers. But the song’s hymn-like melody and powerful imagery endured. John Cale once asked Cohen for the lyrics to the song because he wanted to perform it, and was stunned when Cohen faxed over 15 verses, only a few of which the songwriter used in his original version.

    Cohen labored over the song for years before recording it. And he has performed different versions of the song in concert ever since the initial studio recording, indicating that he has never quite felt the song to be fully “finished.” If anything, Cohen’s restlessness has only added to the song’s allure, its seemingly bottomless mystery.

    It begins as a love song to music itself, its first verse describing the song’s chord pattern – the type of progression that might have been sung at High Mass on the most sacred occasions. 

    Biblical allusions pile up:  David plays his harp to soothe King Saul, and then has an affair with Bathsheba. At the end of the second verse, things get really interesting: a reference to Samson and Delilah and intimations of sado-masochism and death: “She tied you/to a kitchen chair/She broke your throne, she cut your hair/And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.”

    The song about sex, temptation, adultery and religion spirals even further inward and becomes a meditation on the meaning --- or perhaps the meaninglessness – of life.

    The shout of devotion morphs into an ecstatic cry and then a defeated moan. The interjection that means “Praise ye the Lord” turns hollow. In the end, “It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

    “Maybe there’s a God above/And all I ever learned from love/Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.”

    The narrative explores how the erotic becomes political, how relationships are defined not by trust but by conquest, and how lovers become trophies to be discarded. And, somehow, the survivors hope it will be different next time. The broken Hallelujah is life itself.

    greg@gregkot.com

Visit the Leonard Cohen store on amazon.com

The five best versions of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”:

John Cale from “Fragments of a Rainy Season” (1992): Cale stripped away all the gloss from Cohen’s original version and performed it live with just voice and piano. He trusted the song more than Cohen did, and Cale’s remains the definitive version.

Jeff Buckley from “Grace” (1994): A great studio version, though nothing will beat my memory of Buckley’s devastating solo performance of the song at Uncommon Ground on a snowy February night in 1994.

Leonard Cohen from “Live in London” (2009): At 74, Cohen is singing his own song better than ever, and this reading from last year’s comeback tour brims with baritone authority and poignance.

k.d. lang from "Hymns of the 49th Parallel” (2004): She could sing just about anything and make it sound transcendent, but the Canadian powerhouse outdid herself on this tribute to her countryman.

Allison Crowe from “Tidings” (2003):  At 22, this British Columbia native offered a moving interpretation on her debut release.

---Greg Kot