Buy new:
$7.48$7.48
$4.49 delivery Wednesday, March 5
Ships from: ETH Holdings Sold by: ETH Holdings
Save with Used - Very Good
$1.60$1.60
$3.99 delivery March 24 - April 14
Ships from: momox Shop Sold by: momox Shop
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- Sorry, this item is not available in
- Image not available
- To view this video download Flash Player
Old Ideas
Import
Learn more
Learn more
Listen Now with Amazon Music |
Old Ideas
"Please retry" | Amazon Music Unlimited |
Price | New from | Used from |
MP3 Music, January 31, 2012
"Please retry" | $8.99 | — |
Vinyl, Import, January 31, 2012
"Please retry" | $29.61 | $36.33 |
Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Track Listings
1 | Going Home |
2 | Amen |
3 | Show Me the Place |
4 | Darkness |
5 | Anyhow |
6 | Crazy to Love You |
7 | Come Healing |
8 | Banjo |
9 | Lullaby |
10 | Different Sides |
Editorial Reviews
Leonard Cohen releases OLD IDEAS, his first new recording in eight years. This album will be Leonards twelfth studio album with Columbia Records since signing with the label in 1967. Consisting of ten new songs, OLD IDEAS poetically addresses some of the most profound questions of human existence including love, sexuality, loss, and death. OLD IDEAS was produced with Patrick Leonard (Pink Floyd, Elton John, Rod Stewart), Anjani Thomas, Ed Sanders, and Dino Soldo. Complementing Cohens signature baritone are exceptional vocalists Dana Glover, Sharon Robinson, the Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley Webb) and Jennifer Warnes. The albums cover design and drawings are Cohens own.
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Product Dimensions : 5.6 x 4.6 x 0.4 inches; 3.36 ounces
- Manufacturer : Legacy Recordings
- Item model number : 24170426
- Original Release Date : 2012
- Run time : 41 minutes
- Date First Available : November 14, 2011
- Label : Legacy Recordings
- ASIN : B0067LY4WG
- Number of discs : 1
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images

Leonard Cohen: Going Home... to Different Sides
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2012Leonard Cohen has released his 12th studio album, the intensely moving Old Ideas. Not one of his albums has ever cracked the Top 50, and those few of his songs that are well-known by the mainstream public, particularly the omnipresent "Hallelujah," are well-known for being covered by other musicians. He's now 77 years old, and so many of those from his generation are gone, reminiscences of the past or even decades passed on.
But here we have Cohen, there on the album's cover. He's dressed in a suit and a tie, wearing his signature fedora and along with dark shades. He's just sitting on a wooden chair, a slight grin on his face and reading a book. It's an appropriate pose for the man he's become, the thoughtful narrator of insightful truths who earns in acclamation what he lacks in popular recognition.
A few years ago a younger friend who was new to Leonard Cohen's amazing body of work asked me which of his songs I liked best. That was a hard question to answer, as there have been so many good ones, but after thinking for a few minutes, I responded by telling her that I had been recently listening to "Dance Me to the End of Love" a few times, the first song in his 1986 album Various Positions, and that the lyrics were pure poetry.
And now on the first track of Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas, his first studio album in eight years, we hear these words, and they are almost a poetic sequel to that earlier work and so many others:
Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it's better
Than before
Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore
We are presented here with the dramatized image of a "lazy bastard living in a suit," as Cohen puts it, and he progress to examine the futile longing for "a manual for living with defeat," a man trying to deliver the need of a private truth. We hear reflection of times past, of the artist wondering how long he can keep it going with songs like "Amen," with a banjo on its fringes, its horn solo and words of the Lord's retribution.
Like reflective poetry set to song, which it is, we hear Cohen's baritone striking a meditative note is each of his songs:
1. Going Home
2. Amen
3. Show Me The Place
4. Darkness
5. Anyhow
6. Crazy To Love You
7. Come Healing
8. Banjo
9. Lullaby
10. Different Sides
There's an almost religious finality in "Show Me the Place," with Cohen looking for answers from above, with his smoky baritone crooning lowly over his piano. We hear the intricate guitar finger work in "Darkness," reminiscent of the artist's earlier works from years past, with Cohen's voice recollecting the darkness "... drinking from your cup."
"Anyhow" is the perfect lead-in to "Crazy To Love You" where the agonized and lovelorn lyrics seem to reflect on a larger-than-life relationship, but had its downsides: it turned out as a "souvenir heartache" in the end.
His entreaties for reparation in "Come Healing" are there, and with the backup by its female harmonies, Cohen appeals to "see the darkness healing that tore the light apart," his heart calling out for redemption as a penitent hymn. And we hear a bit of lyrical play-acting in "Banjo."
The "Lullaby" track offers something to guide us through the long night, which Cohen, with his melancholic yet hopeful voice and lyrics, has been doing so well over the decades. And in the closing song, "Different Sides" we hear of the discusses the opportunity of staying `good' in an often-hard world, and the effect of sex in a relationship.
Throughout the album, even with its reflective and often redemptive tone, Cohen's bad boy audacity and often-sardonic tone that he refined decades ago is still there. No matter how many times you listen to these, you cannot help but realize that first and foremost, Cohen is a poet. Old Ideas isn't all about loss, infidelity and appealing to a supreme being. The things that made Cohen vital for decades are there: cynicism, love, cravings, remorse, suffering, optimism, and yes, a bit of hamming it up. He offers us vocal images that can range from reflective to biblical epiphany and apocalypse, and even a bit of mischievous sensuality. It's all here.
There have been other memorable albums from Leonard Cohen in the past, and speaking subjectively, at the top of the list would be The Essential Leonard Cohen, for within this two-disc set are those songs which are considered by many to be his true classics. Ever since hearing "Suzanne" on the radio many decades ago, this listener has been a fan, and that song is the first track of this album, along with "Bird on the Wire", "Chelsea Hotel #2", "Hallelujah", "Dance Me to the End of Love" and so many more. It's a career-spanning collection that was originally released in 2002, all tracks from his studio albums. For those new to Leonard Cohen and wanting to learn about his earlier offerings, one could scarcely do better than this.
Cohen has left an imprint on music that spans across over forty years of music history, and he's been a powerful inspiration for numerous musicians. Over four decades after his first release, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," he's back conveying material that's a match for the complexity and clout of his first solo record, while staying as alive and remarkable a poet as ever.
As perhaps a footnote to all of this, it should be said that when this listener received the CD, there was a pleasant surprise. In the liner notes we find the lyrics, as expected, but it's like a separate book of poetry to read them. Along with these are spread sone of Leonard Cohen's original artwork, along with photos of the handwritten notes that he composed during the making of this album. The CD itself has the drawing of a woman, the same one that's in the liner notes with "Different Sides." Have posted a simple photo of the liner and CD here.
Old Ideas is a reflective album from an artist looking back in the autumn of his years, contemplating on good and bad recollections from other times, yet it also has a real twinkle in its eye, so to speak... and it's one of Cohen's best.
2/2/2012
5.0 out of 5 starsLeonard Cohen has released his 12th studio album, the intensely moving Old Ideas. Not one of his albums has ever cracked the Top 50, and those few of his songs that are well-known by the mainstream public, particularly the omnipresent "Hallelujah," are well-known for being covered by other musicians. He's now 77 years old, and so many of those from his generation are gone, reminiscences of the past or even decades passed on.Leonard Cohen: Going Home... to Different Sides
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2012
But here we have Cohen, there on the album's cover. He's dressed in a suit and a tie, wearing his signature fedora and along with dark shades. He's just sitting on a wooden chair, a slight grin on his face and reading a book. It's an appropriate pose for the man he's become, the thoughtful narrator of insightful truths who earns in acclamation what he lacks in popular recognition.
A few years ago a younger friend who was new to Leonard Cohen's amazing body of work asked me which of his songs I liked best. That was a hard question to answer, as there have been so many good ones, but after thinking for a few minutes, I responded by telling her that I had been recently listening to "Dance Me to the End of Love" a few times, the first song in his 1986 album Various Positions, and that the lyrics were pure poetry.
And now on the first track of Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas, his first studio album in eight years, we hear these words, and they are almost a poetic sequel to that earlier work and so many others:
Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it's better
Than before
Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore
We are presented here with the dramatized image of a "lazy bastard living in a suit," as Cohen puts it, and he progress to examine the futile longing for "a manual for living with defeat," a man trying to deliver the need of a private truth. We hear reflection of times past, of the artist wondering how long he can keep it going with songs like "Amen," with a banjo on its fringes, its horn solo and words of the Lord's retribution.
Like reflective poetry set to song, which it is, we hear Cohen's baritone striking a meditative note is each of his songs:
1. Going Home
2. Amen
3. Show Me The Place
4. Darkness
5. Anyhow
6. Crazy To Love You
7. Come Healing
8. Banjo
9. Lullaby
10. Different Sides
There's an almost religious finality in "Show Me the Place," with Cohen looking for answers from above, with his smoky baritone crooning lowly over his piano. We hear the intricate guitar finger work in "Darkness," reminiscent of the artist's earlier works from years past, with Cohen's voice recollecting the darkness "... drinking from your cup."
"Anyhow" is the perfect lead-in to "Crazy To Love You" where the agonized and lovelorn lyrics seem to reflect on a larger-than-life relationship, but had its downsides: it turned out as a "souvenir heartache" in the end.
His entreaties for reparation in "Come Healing" are there, and with the backup by its female harmonies, Cohen appeals to "see the darkness healing that tore the light apart," his heart calling out for redemption as a penitent hymn. And we hear a bit of lyrical play-acting in "Banjo."
The "Lullaby" track offers something to guide us through the long night, which Cohen, with his melancholic yet hopeful voice and lyrics, has been doing so well over the decades. And in the closing song, "Different Sides" we hear of the discusses the opportunity of staying `good' in an often-hard world, and the effect of sex in a relationship.
Throughout the album, even with its reflective and often redemptive tone, Cohen's bad boy audacity and often-sardonic tone that he refined decades ago is still there. No matter how many times you listen to these, you cannot help but realize that first and foremost, Cohen is a poet. Old Ideas isn't all about loss, infidelity and appealing to a supreme being. The things that made Cohen vital for decades are there: cynicism, love, cravings, remorse, suffering, optimism, and yes, a bit of hamming it up. He offers us vocal images that can range from reflective to biblical epiphany and apocalypse, and even a bit of mischievous sensuality. It's all here.
There have been other memorable albums from Leonard Cohen in the past, and speaking subjectively, at the top of the list would be The Essential Leonard Cohen, for within this two-disc set are those songs which are considered by many to be his true classics. Ever since hearing "Suzanne" on the radio many decades ago, this listener has been a fan, and that song is the first track of this album, along with "Bird on the Wire", "Chelsea Hotel #2", "Hallelujah", "Dance Me to the End of Love" and so many more. It's a career-spanning collection that was originally released in 2002, all tracks from his studio albums. For those new to Leonard Cohen and wanting to learn about his earlier offerings, one could scarcely do better than this.
Cohen has left an imprint on music that spans across over forty years of music history, and he's been a powerful inspiration for numerous musicians. Over four decades after his first release, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," he's back conveying material that's a match for the complexity and clout of his first solo record, while staying as alive and remarkable a poet as ever.
As perhaps a footnote to all of this, it should be said that when this listener received the CD, there was a pleasant surprise. In the liner notes we find the lyrics, as expected, but it's like a separate book of poetry to read them. Along with these are spread sone of Leonard Cohen's original artwork, along with photos of the handwritten notes that he composed during the making of this album. The CD itself has the drawing of a woman, the same one that's in the liner notes with "Different Sides." Have posted a simple photo of the liner and CD here.
Old Ideas is a reflective album from an artist looking back in the autumn of his years, contemplating on good and bad recollections from other times, yet it also has a real twinkle in its eye, so to speak... and it's one of Cohen's best.
2/2/2012
Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2012This is from Banjo, one of the songs on LC's great new album, Old Ideas.
It's a broken banjo bobbing
On the dark infested sea
It's coming for me darling
No matter where I go
Its duty is to harm me
My duty is to know
What's going on here? What is the dark sea infested with? Why is the banjo broken, menacing? How come it's after the 77 year old songwriter, intent on harming the gracious and self deprecating old fellow?
We never learn. Perhaps this is a merciful thing...
Over the course of his lifetime Cohen's ever more gravelly baritone has at times been the voice of the prophet, the muse, the lecher, the lover, the poet, the madman and oftentimes, the priest. All are represented in Old Ideas, a remarkable new collection of songs by the master.
This is a starkly existential album. It traces a thin line along the edge of an abyss. But even as it does so, it holds out the hope of redemption and the promise of restoration - a coming out of the darkness and into the light.
Darkness is one song I just can't get out of my mind. It's a taut and sinister twelve bar that's at any moment ready to snap. The tension is unbelievable:
I caught the darkness
It was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
Drinking from your cup
I said, "Is this contagious?"
You said, "Just drink it up."
Meanwhile Leonard finger picks insistently, Neil Larsen weaves a haunting refrain on the Hammond B3, and when Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters kick in with a vocal of urgent and barely restrained desire it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
How about this from Different Sides:
I to my side call the meek and the mild
You to your side call the Word
By virtue of suffering I claim to have won
You claim to have never been heard
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
The production of this album is exceptional. The arrangements are spare and precise, tightly wound, and flawlessly executed by an outstanding group of musicians, several of whom accompanied Cohen on his recent epic world tour.
Another song I just can't get away from is Show Me the Place.
Show me the place, help me roll away the stone
Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone
Show me the place where the Word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began
The piano is distant even as it carries with it an abiding sadness and pain.
And then Come Healing:
And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb
Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace
O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
O, see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart
There's no doubt about it. Old Ideas is a masterpiece.
Top reviews from other countries
-
Cliente AmazonReviewed in Italy on July 12, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars old ideas
Ottimo! per gli amanti di L. Cohen non deve mancare. Registrazione e resa sonora ottime.
-
Toni . podria indicar tamaños de diámetro, exterior, interior y grosor entre ellos. Muchas graciasReviewed in Spain on December 16, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Buen album
Grabado correctamente, gramaje perfecto.
Canciones en su forma y estilo Coheniano.
Ha llegado superprotegido , doble caja.
Cds de regalo, gracias.
-
The Goose Corp.Reviewed in Sweden on August 4, 2022
2.0 out of 5 stars Undermålig pressning.
Tyvärr är skivan ej bra pressad. Många missljud på B-sidan. Tyvärr är detta ett vanligt förekommande fel på LP-skivor som är pressade "idag". Slarvigt hantverk eftersom det är lättförtjänta pengar när LP är populärt igen. Numera är det ett lotteri om skivan man köper håller god kvalitet. Ej värd pengarna. Musiken är dock bra. Ingen skugga skall falla över Leonard.
-
EnriqueReviewed in Mexico on January 6, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Muy bueno
Un disco que ni conocía pero buenísimo como lo que acostumbraba haber Cohen. Bien comprento a la colección que vende Amazon
- Shalan SavurReviewed in India on September 5, 2016
3.0 out of 5 stars Not ready for Cohen
Old Ideas by Leonard Cohen was not what I expected it to be. The lyrics are chanted rather than sung. Also was disappointed as it said it was a double album on the cover. Inside, however, there was only 1 disc. It is possible that the entire double album was on one disc. I don't know. But the music did not inspire as I hoped it would. I'd got interested in Cohen's music because he had visited the great sage Ramesh Balsekar and got inspired. Also, Pico Iyer had written about him. Maybe I am not at the right 'place' yet to appreciate Cohen.