Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Leonard Cohen

Various Positions

1984 · CBS CBS 26222 · Stereo · UK (label rim text reads “MADE IN ENGLAND”; the catalogue number is shared with a Netherlands-pressed Europe edition, but that plant marking does not appear on this copy's label) · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	CBS
Catalogue number	CBS 26222
Year	1984
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	UK (label rim text reads “MADE IN ENGLAND”; the catalogue number is shared with a Netherlands-pressed Europe edition, but that plant marking does not appear on this copy's label)
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Folk Rock / Singer-Songwriter
Producer	John Lissauer
Composer	Leonard Cohen
Musicians	Leonard Cohen (vocals, guitar), Jennifer Warnes (vocals), John Crowder (bass, backing vocals), Richard Crooks (drums), Sid McGinnis (guitar), Kenneth Kosek (fiddle), Ron Getman (harmonica, backing vocals), John Lissauer (piano and keyboard orchestrations, backing vocals); backing vocals: Erin Dickins, Merle Miller, Yvonne Lewis, Anjani Thomas, Crissie Faith, Lani Groves

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  CBS-26222-A1 A
Side B:  CBS-26222-B1 A 0 1

Condition

Cover: EX
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

1984 - CBS Netherlands (Haarlem) pressing, Masterdisk NY-cut runout, CBS 26222
1984 - CBS UK pressing, orange-to-yellow “Pacman” label, England rim text, CBS 26222  <- this copy
1984 - US Passport Records release, PBC 6045 - no price band found
c. 2009 - Columbia/Legacy 180g vinyl reissue, COLLP 35311

This Pressing

1984 CBS UK stereo pressing - flat orange-to-yellow “Pacman” label, England rim text, LC 0149 code, plain catalogue-style runout without a Masterdisk stamp.

The Album

Various Positions was Leonard Cohen's seventh studio album, recorded with producer John Lissauer after the two had not worked together since the aborted Death of a Ladies' Man sessions years earlier, and it marked a return to spare, carefully arranged songwriting after Cohen's more ornate 1970s records. The sessions, cut at a New York studio with a core band and backing singers including Jennifer Warnes, produced what would become Cohen's most enduring composition, Hallelujah, a song built from dozens of draft verses that Cohen worked over for years before settling on the take heard here. At the time of release the label's US arm famously declined to issue the record domestically, leaving it to a small independent to bring it out in America while CBS's international divisions released it as a matter of course, a slight that has become one of the best-known anecdotes of Cohen's career. Despite the lukewarm initial reception, the album is now regarded as a turning point that reestablished Cohen as a serious songwriting force after a fallow commercial period, pairing the romanticism of Dance Me to the End of Love and If It Be Your Will with the darker character studies of The Captain and The Law. Hallelujah itself was barely noticed on release and took on its canonical status only through later cover versions, but the album as a whole is now seen as the quiet beginning of one of the most covered and most written-about songs in popular music. Various Positions sits at a pivot point in Cohen's discography, bridging his 1970s work with the synth-and-strings sound of his later career, and it is treated by critics and fans alike as an essential, underrated entry in his catalogue.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Dance Me to the End of Love (4.40)
2. Coming Back to You (3.30)
3. The Law (4.22)
4. Night Comes On (4.36)

Side 2

1. Hallelujah (4.34)
2. The Captain (4.05)
3. Hunter's Lullaby (2.23)
4. Heart With No Companion (3.01)
5. If It Be Your Will (3.40)

The Label

The label is a flat label, not deep groove: CBS's early-1980s orange-to-pale-yellow gradient design with the boxed “eye” logo and blue-white CBS wordmark, an LC 0149 rights-society code in an oval at upper right, and rim text reading “MADE IN ENGLAND.” The LC code dates the label no earlier than 1977 and the ℗1984 date printed on the label fixes this pressing to 1984. The England rim text and a plain catalogue-style runout etching without a Masterdisk mastering stamp place this as the UK-manufactured issue of CBS 26222, a separate contemporaneous pressing from the Netherlands-pressed edition of the same catalogue number and year, which carries a Masterdisk-stamped runout instead.

Fidelity

The album was recorded and mixed by Leanne Ungar and produced by John Lissauer at a New York studio, with mastering for the catalogue number generally credited to a New York mastering house on some pressings of this number; this copy's simpler catalogue-style runout etching does not carry those mastering-house stamps, suggesting a separately cut UK lacquer rather than a direct transfer of the New York plates. Collectors generally regard the original 1984 CBS pressings, wherever cut, as close to each other in sound and prefer them to the later Columbia/Legacy 180-gram reissue, which is well-regarded in its own right but mastered from a different, modern chain. This copy ranks among the original-era pressings rather than with the later audiophile reissue.

Notes

This is a 1984 CBS stereo pressing of Various Positions, CBS 26222. The label's ℗1984 date and LC 0149 rights-society code both confirm an issue no earlier than 1984, and the rim text reading “Made in England” places this specific copy with CBS's UK manufacturing rather than the Netherlands-pressed Europe edition that shares the same catalogue number and year. The runout etching on this copy is a plain catalogue-style stamp without the Masterdisk New York mastering marks seen on some copies of this number, consistent with a separately cut UK lacquer. The back cover carries a CBS internal stamp reading “Property of CBS Demonstration Only - Not for Sale,” identifying this specific copy as a promotional pressing rather than a standard retail copy.

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