‘Ballad of the Absent Mare’: The Leonard Cohen song inspired by his love of art
Whilst the work of the late Leonard Cohen can be described in a multitude of ways, the best means of doing so would be to label it as pure art. One of the music industry’s definitive poets, in a classical approach like his contemporary Bob Dylan, Cohen’s explorations of religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships remain incredibly profound. One of the most consistent artists of all time, Cohen’s craft did not wane with age, with the dream-like quality of his work remaining until the very end.
An inherently visual songwriter who crafted stories so immersive that they even trump the philosophical contemplations of Dylan, across his career, Cohen provided moments that touched both through the emotion of his arrangments and the strength of his prose. Fusing the autobiographical with the fantastical, at different points, he could be as explicit as possible or prefer to make the listener do the work.
One of his most revered moments comes in the form of ‘Ballad of the Absent Mare’ from 1979’s Recent Songs. Notably, the record saw Cohen return to the acoustic folk music of his early years after the Phil Spector-helmed experimentation that was 1977’s Death of a Ladies’ Man. This time though, he blended his natural formula with Eastern and jazz influences, which augmented the dream-like nature of his work.
Nowhere is this clearer than in ‘Ballad of the Absent Mare’, which remains one of his most heartwarming lyrical and musical flourishes. A work of unadulterated art, the song also served to reflect Cohen’s love of art and culture. Indicative of this, the metaphorical lyrics are based on the 12th-century work Mare Ten Bulls (or Ten Ox-herding Pictures). It is a series of short poems and accompanying pictures that illustrate the stages of a Mahayana Buddhist’s path towards the ultimate goal, enlightenment.
Cohen’s friend and collaborator, Jennifer Warnes, shed light on how the song was written on her website. She describes a sunny Cohen visiting her at her house to share it with her after he’d been away on a silent retreat. She says she sat at her rented piano “as Leonard’s twelve elegant, spartan verses unfolded. I remember thinking… something miraculous is happening, right this minute, in my stupid little living room”.
“Leonard had found some old pictures somewhere,” Warnes continued. “They were called The Ten Bulls, old Japanese woodcuts symbolizing the stages of a monk’s life on the road to enlightenment. These carvings pictured a boy and a bull, the boy losing the bull, the bull hiding, the boy realizing that the bull was nearby all along. There is a struggle, and finally the boy rides the bull into his little village. ‘I thought this would make a great cowboy song,’ he joked.”
Concluding, Warnes said: “I was recently asked to write something about ‘Ballad of the Runaway Horse.’ ‘Tell them it’s not about a horse,’ a friend advised, tongue in cheek. But Leonard was a member of a teenage band called The Buckskin Boys. Maybe his song is about a horse, I don’t exactly know. Best to ask Leonard.”
