Dear Heather
| Dear Heather | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Leonard Cohen | ||||
| Released | October 26, 2004 | |||
| Recorded | 1979, July 9, 1985, 2002–04 | |||
| Genre | Soft rock, contemporary folk | |||
| Length | 49:27 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Leanne Ungar, Sharon Robinson, Anjani Thomas, Henry Lewy, Leonard Cohen | |||
| Leonard Cohen chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Robert Christgau | B |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Pitchfork | 8.0/10 |
Dear Heather is the 11th studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released by Columbia Records in 2004.
Three tracks on the album – "Go No More A-Roving", "The Letters" and "There For You" – came from the Ten New Songs recording sessions, Cohen's previous album from 2001. As such, Sharon Robinson supplied the music, production, and singing for those songs. The rest of the material came from various sources that feature Cohen experimenting with different musical approaches. On "To a Teacher", Cohen quotes himself from The Spice-Box of Earth, his second collection of poetry from 1961. The basic tracks of "The Faith" dated back to the Recent Songs sessions from 1979. The album concludes with a live version of the country standard "Tennessee Waltz", which was taken from a performance during his tour in support of the LP Various Positions. Considering the plethora of sources from which the material sprang, Cohen had originally wanted to call the album Old Ideas, but eventually changed it to Dear Heather for fear that fans might assume it was merely a compilation or "best of" package (Old Ideas would be the title of Cohen's next studio album). There is a marked increase in spoken poetry over singing, with two songs featuring words by other writers: Lord Byron ("No More A-Roving") and F. R. Scott ("Villanelle for our Time"). The gospel-tinged "On That Day" addresses the still-raw tragedy and horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Cohen did not tour or do interviews to support the album, which was dedicated to Cohen's ailing friend Irving Layton, the late Canadian poet A. M. Klein and the late R&B singer Carl Anderson.
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Wikipedia