Leonard Cohen Hymned By The National’s Bryce Dessner

“LEONARD COHEN IS ONE OF MY FIRST loves in music,” The National’s Bryce Dessner tells MOJO magazine, which features a wealth of Cohen-related material in its latest issue. “Along with Dylan and Neil Young – he’s on that level.”

Dessner, who contributed to the sessions that resulted in the posthumous new Cohen album, Thanks For The Dance, first encountered Cohen as a poet, through a copy of Selected Poems 1956-1968 he came across in New York. A guitarist in the classical sphere as well as rock and pop, Dessner was later drawn to the nylon-string guitar textures on Cohen’s early albums.

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“There’s something labyrinth-like in some of those guitar arpeggios,” he says. “We were often trying to do something like that in The National. You can hear that in Racing Like A Pro on [2007 The National album] Boxer – the way it kind of references Stranger Song [from Songs Of Leonard Cohen, 1967].”

Dessner is equally beguiled by Cohen’s later albums.

“I love the album Phil Spector produced – Death Of A Ladies Man,” he says. “The use of strings and brass on that had a big impact. I was married a couple of years ago, and our wedding song was Memories from Death Of A Ladies Man. And there’s a song on [2017 National album] Sleep Well Beast called Dark Side Of The Gym – the title is a quote from Memories. So it feels like I’ve come full circle with Leonard Cohen.”

Dessner is among a select band of musicians – including Beck and Cohen’s former touring guitarist/laud player Javier Mas – corralled by Cohen’s son Adam to play on Thanks For The Dance. Like Damien Rice, Leslie Feist and Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, Dessner was recruited while playing the PEOPLE festival at the Funkhaus – a sprawling 1950s recording facility in the old East Berlin.

MOJO 314: Leonard Cohen, Best Of 2019 CD, Review Of The Year and much much more.

“Adam and [engineer] Michael Chaves set up there and there was kind of a rumour going around that they were working on this record,” Dessner chuckles. “It would be like the middle of the night and there would be a tap on your shoulder: ‘Come…’ Being able to posthumously collaborate with Leonard Cohen is insane. Hearing his voice, hearing music that wasn’t finished and getting to play on it, was such a special experience. It felt like a sacred space.”

While Dessner never met Leonard Cohen, he watched the master play Benicàssim in 2008 (“It’s one of the only times I’ve cried at a concert”), and his involvement in Thanks For The Dance has left him with a sense of being drawn into Cohen’s orbit.

“You could feel the magic of him, the power of his words, the lucidity,” says Dessner. “Everything he writes, it cuts straight to the bone. Dylan is obviously immense as a songwriter, but with Dylan you’re always chasing shadows. With Leonard Cohen, he’s always right there. Then there’s just the beauty of the words. He’s human and bare and unafraid to show himself. We wouldn’t have the music we have today without him.”

THERE’S MUCH MORE LEONARD COHEN IN THE LATEST MOJO MAGAZINE, ON UK NEWSTANDS NOW, AND AVAILABLE ONLINE.

Bryce Dessner photographed by Graham MacIndoe

The National play their own Homecoming festival in Cincinnati, May 8-9, 2020. Tickets are on sale now https://www.ntlhomecoming.com