Leonard and I have a close relationship, only he doesn't know it. I love his poetry, songs, and voice, even when he sings in his gravelly old man's voice, speaking more than singing the lyrics.Leonard's final album You Want It Darker arrived a few days ago. I didn't want it darker, and I especially didn't want it darker this way, but I love the sad, haunting album. Leonard is gone, but his music lives on.
We have a lot in common: We are contemporaries, born in the same year in September, only three days apart. He has back trouble and is more or less "confined to barracks", as he says, and as I am. Except for the fact that he is male and a genius poet, song writer, lyricist, and singer, we are just the same. See?
From Rolling Stone:
"My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records," Cohen's son Adam wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone. "He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor."As we grew old together, the resonance of Leonard's songs grew ever greater and deeper over the years.
From Cohen's 2012 album Old Ideas.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
