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Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, who died at the age of 82 on November 7, 2016, had released ‘You Want It Darker’ the previous month, his fourteenth studio album, which became a testament to a nearly fifty-year repertoire. Its tones, both profound and graceful, continue to resonate.
Grace and gravity. Spirituality and lightness. Love and disenchantment. Throughout ‘You Want it Darker’ (2016), the fourteenth chapter of a discography that spans nearly fifty years since ‘The Songs of Leonard Cohen’ (1967), the 82-year-old wandering Canadian who has published novels and poetry had revived with refinement the cherished themes that might one day have earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature.
The songwriter and singer, whom Dylan has admired since his early folk days in New York’s East Village, and who became iconic in the 1980s for a new generation of musicians on the independent rock scene (Nick Cave, Suzanne Vega, and R.E.M.), certainly didn’t revolutionize his art of the slow, prayerful, or mantra-like song on ‘You Want It Darker,’ but it now takes on a testamentary dimension. His serene, otherworldly voice, more spoken-word than sung, flourished on haunting melodies and lyrics steeped in religious references, always imbued with serenity, philosophy, and nostalgia.
>> Listen to the title track from Leonard Cohen’s album ‘You Want It Darker’:
The tenth anniversary of Leonard Cohen’s death certainly provides an opportunity to revisit his spiritual work and his long and illustrious career. Several special issues of the music press are paying tribute to him these days, while his son Adam Cohen, accompanied by his own son Cassius on bass, have embarked on a series of concerts in Quebec City and Montreal as part of a tour called ‘Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen’. The tour will travel to Europe in early 2027, including a performance on February 6th at the Salle Pleyel in Paris.
