Various Positions

Various Positions is Leonard Cohen's seventh studio album, released in December 1984. Produced by John Lissauer, it is one of the most artistically rich and commercially ill-fated records in his catalogue.

The album's most notorious backstory involves one of the most famous rejections in music industry history. Columbia Records president Walter Yetnikoff declined to distribute it in North America, reportedly telling Cohen: "We know you're great, but we don't know if you're any good."^[1] Cohen quoted that line for the rest of his life, including in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech. The album was instead released in the United States through the independent label Passport Records.

Despite this inauspicious commercial launch, Various Positions contains some of Cohen's most enduring work. "Dance Me to the End of Love" opens the record with an unusual pairing of waltz-like warmth and a subject rooted in Holocaust horror. And then there is "Hallelujah," which Cohen had been drafting for approximately five years before its inclusion here, filling notebooks with 80 or more discarded verses before arriving at the version he could live with.^[2]

The album performed modestly in Europe, reaching the top ten in Spain, Portugal, and several Scandinavian countries.^[1] Columbia eventually incorporated it into Cohen's catalogue when issuing his back catalogue on CD in 1990. Its reputation has only grown since, and it is now regarded as one of the pivotal records of his career.