Leonard Cohen, rock music's poetic
visionary, dies at age 82
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[November 11, 2016]
By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Leonard Cohen, rock
music's man of letters whose songs fused religious imagery with themes
of redemption and sexual desire, earning him critical and popular
acclaim, has died at age 82, a statement on his Facebook page said.
"It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter
and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away," a statement on the Facebook
page said. "We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific
visionaries."
The statement did not provide further details on Cohen's death, and
representatives for the singer could not be reached immediately for
comment. It said a memorial was planned in Los Angeles, where Cohen had
lived for many years.
"R.I.P. Leonard Cohen," singer-songwriter Carole King said on Twitter.
Singer Roseanne Cash echoed the lyrics from Cohen's song "Anthem" when
she said in a tweet: "Leonard Cohen is dead. There's a crack in
everything. No light yet."
Cohen, a native of Quebec, was already a celebrated poet and novelist
when he moved to New York in 1966 at age 31 to break into the music
business.
Before long, critics were comparing him to Bob Dylan for the lyrical
force of his songwriting.
Although he influenced many musicians and won many honors, including
induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada,
Cohen rarely made the pop music charts with his sometimes moody
folk-rock.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/11/images/ads/current/hartsburggrain_daily_sda_021115.png)
But Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah," in which he invoked the
biblical King David and drew parallels between physical love and a
desire for spiritual connection, has been covered hundreds of times
since he released it in 1984.
"Hallelujah's" long road to mass appeal was matched by Cohen's own
painstaking approach to writing it. He spent five years penning drafts,
at one point banging his head on the floor of a hotel room in
frustration.
THE SACRED AND PROFANE
Many of Cohen's songs became hits for other artists, including Judy
Collins, who helped Cohen gain fame by recording some of his early
compositions in the 1960s.
Cohen's most ardent admirers compared his works to spiritual prophecy.
He sang about religion, with references to Jesus Christ and Jewish
traditions, as well as love and sex, political upheaval, regret and what
he once called the search for "a kind of balance in the chaos of
existence".
His lyrics were deeply personal and at times took on an element of
prayer, as in 1969's "Bird on the Wire" in which he sang: "I swear by
this song/And by all that I have done wrong/I will make it all up to
thee."
Cohen's other well-known songs include "Suzanne," "So Long, Marianne,"
"Famous Blue Raincoat" and "The Future," an apocalyptic 1992 recording
in which he darkly intoned: "I've seen the future, brother/It is
murder."
The inspiration for "So Long, Marianne" was Cohen's longtime romantic
partner and muse Marianne Ihlen, a Norwegian woman he met while living
on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s.
A New Yorker profile of Cohen last month recounted how, after being told
in July she had only a few days left to live, he emailed her: "Well
Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our
bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon."
Two days later, he learned in an email she had died after reading his
note.
Cohen toured extensively from 2008 to 2013 after being unable to collect
most of a $9 million judgment against his former manager and lover,
Kelley Lynch, whom he accused of draining his savings.
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![](../images/111116pics/news_n25.jpg)
Musician Leonard Cohen tips his hat to the audience as he accepts
the 2012 Awards for Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence, which was
awarded to both he and Chuck Berry at the John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library and Museum, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. on
February 26, 2012. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/11/images/ads/current/aaa_lda_FFARM_2016.png)
He released an album, "You Want It Darker," just last month. But the New
Yorker described him as ailing, quoting him as saying he was more or
less "confined to barracks" in his Los Angeles residence.
MEANING AMID LOSS
Cohen's nasal voice and deep-bass, conversational vocals were criticized
by some as being monotone. British musician Paul Weller once called his
melancholy style "music to slit your wrists to".
But his work was also suffused with irony and self-deprecating humor,
often touching on his relationship with fame and his reputation for
romantic entanglements.
"I got this rap as a kind of ladies' man," Cohen told Canada's Globe and
Mail in 2007. "And as I say in one of the poems, it has caused me to
laugh, when I think of all the lonely nights."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Cohen as "a most
remarkable Montrealer" who had "managed to reach the highest of artistic
achievement, both as an acclaimed poet and a world-renowned
singer-songwriter".
Born into a Jewish family in 1934 and raised in an affluent
English-speaking neighborhood of the city, Cohen read Spanish poet
Federico García Lorca as a teenager, learned to play guitar from a
flamenco musician and formed a country band called the Buckskin Boys.
He attended McGill University in Montreal and published his first book
of poetry shortly after graduation.
Living on grant money from the Canadian government and an inheritance
from his family, Cohen published in the 1960s the poetry collections
"The Spice-Box of Earth" and "Flowers for Hitler" and novels "The
Favourite Game" and "Beautiful Losers."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/11/images/ads/current/brickey_lda_061314.png)
But disillusioned with his meager income, Cohen turned to songwriting
and landed an audition in 1967 with John Hammond, the producer who had
discovered Dylan. Hammond signed him to Columbia Records, which would
remain Cohen's label for five decades.
Cohen toured widely but also sought solace in meditation, far from the
public eye. For part of the 1990s, Cohen lived in a Zen Buddhist
monastery in the San Gabriel Mountains just outside Los Angeles, where
he handled tasks as menial as cleaning toilets.
Cohen, who never married, is survived by his daughter, Lorca, and his
son, Adam.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Catherine Evans)
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