Rank the Songs on "Various Positions"

Side one:

"Dance Me to the End of Love" (feat. string arrangement by David Campbell) – 4:38
"Coming Back to You" – 3:32
"The Law" – 4:27
"Night Comes On" – 4:40

Side two:

"Hallelujah" – 4:36
"The Captain" – 4:06
"Hunter's Lullaby" – 2:24
"Heart with No Companion" – 3:04
"If It Be Your Will" – 3:43

Shouldn't this be a poll?

People on my FB opining that Hallelujah is not even especially good Cohen. This strikes me as challops but I thought - what's its company there? A very strong album imo - when I first heard it, "Hallelujah" and "Dance Me to the End of Love" would have been the 1-2 easy, but I'm such a "Recent Songs" fan and "Heart With No Companion" sounds like a leftover from that bunch - the folksy setting, the apocalyptic vibe. It's of a piece with "The Captain" in that regard, though the latter's funnier.

"The Law" sounds for all the world like 80s Lou Reed. There's not a dud on here in my view but my rank is this, I think:

Heart with No Companion
Hallelujah
If It Be Your Will
Night Comes On
The Captain
Coming Back to You
Dance Me to the End of Love
The Law
The Hunter

(I'm a lot more interested in discussion than a poll, I stopped kvetching about polls ages ago & can have fun with them but no, I think a discussion is fine here, there doesn't need to be a WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER moment)

we should poll whether this should be a poll imo

Not feeling the Recent Songs vibe in Heart With No Companion, I have to admit. RS has such a strong European chanson flavour and (Dance Me excepted) VP is basically a country and western album.

Anyway I'm game, here's mine:

Coming Back to You
If It Be Your Will
Hallelujah
Heart With No Companion
The Captain
Night Comes On
The Law
Dance Me To The End of Love
Hunter's Lullaby

"command of what? there's no-one here, there's only you and me / the rest are dead or in retreat or with the enemy"

yeah I struggled ranking "Coming Back to You" - I love it, but certainly not more than "If It Be Your Will" -- and so on.

which album do you prefer between the two mentioned here? I am a huge Recent Songs partisan, feel like it used to get passed over by early-70s Cohen-heads

Well I'm doing my LC poll ranking at the moment and there's four songs from RS on it and only one from VP, so.

Yeah I slept on RS for a while but now I love it, in part because it seems like the final flowering of his folk style.

"dance me" is clearly the best imo, then "coming back to you." for me the album never quite reaches the heights of those first two ("hallelujah" being the exception) but since those first two songs are so good i am always in the mood to put this album on.

i love recent songs btw

"dance me" is a tune i have to listen to 2 or 3 times anytime i put it on though. i'll listen to the VP version and play it a couple times and then find some live versions on youtube and watch those and then i'll listen to the rest of VP

for a long time my favorite Cohen album, especially if I remove "Hallelujah"

If It Be Your Will
Coming Back to You
The Law
Night Comes On
Dance Me...
The Captain
Heart With No Companion
Hallelujah
Heart with No Lullaby

"The Law" sounds for all the world like 80s Lou Reed.

I wondered if Alfred would rank this highly!!

Dance Me... is an oddity. It's strange how he used the Casio on just that one song and then went back to it big time four years later on I'm Your Man. Speaking of which, I've always thought "I Can't Forget" would have been a better fit on VP, with its twangy guitars. Apparently he had the song for years and couldn't get the lyrics right until IYM.

If It Be Your Will
Night Comes On
Coming Back to You
Hallelujah
The Law
Hunter's Lullaby
Heart with No Companion
The Captain
Dance Me to the End of Love

Not a weak one there, though the opening minute of "Dance Me to the End of Love" can bring a party to a halt with the tinny synths and la-las. Easily in my top-five favorite albums, and I've covered most of the songs in one show or another.

- the formal perfection of the "If It Be Your Will" lyrics
- Jennifer Warnes' sighing harmony in the final chorus "Night Comes On"
- the double-tracking vocals on "The Captain"
- the brevity and timelessness of "Hunter's Lullaby" - could have been written in 800 B.C.
- the Montreal feel and details of "Night Comes On"
- the "devil's chord" in the opening verse of "Hallelujah"
- the iambs in every line of "Dance Me to the End of Love"
- "I don't claim to be guilty / guilty's too grand" in "The Law"
- "Even when you bend to give comfort in the night" in "Coming Back to You"
- The overall metaphor laid out in "The Heart with No Companion"

Heart with No Lullaby

enjoying this typo

if it be your will
the law
coming back to you
dance me to the end of love
heart with no companion
night comes on
hallelujah
the captain
hunter's lullaby

i'm also huge recent recent songs partisan and feel like it's an alternate dimension leonard cohen where he followed a jazz-folk inclination; various positions is interesting in that it could be considered a really transitional album but has such a strong sense of itself

my "hallelujah" ranking is challops i guess but it's hard for me to hear the song anymore