Leonard Cohen, who has died at the age of 82, will be remembered for his gravelly voiced, poetic songs that mix spirituality and sex as he spent a lifetime seeking love and enlightenment.Those classic songs, strung out over a five-decade career, have been covered by hundreds of other artists and made him one of the most influential songwriters along with Bob Dylan.Cohen’s knowingness is obvious in one of his early songs, “Suzanne,” which is well known for its version by Judy Collins, particularly its lyric “you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.” His epitaph could be from his song “Bird on The Wire,” with its opening words “like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried on my way to be free.”One of his greatest hits was “Hallelujah,” known for its version by Jeff Buckley among many others, and with its words that vary between elation and dejection, and its conclusion “and even though it all went wrong, I stand before the Lord of song, with nothing on my tongue but ‘hallelujah.’”Cohen was always the polite Canadian gentleman, who was a poet and novelist before despairing at the amount of money he was making in print and turned to songwriting. In later years, with his relentless touring to compensate for the financial fraud of his former manager, his dress code resolved itself into smartly-cut ministerial suits and fedora. In concert, backed by a crack band with just enough support to boost his sometimes minimalistic material, he would endlessly thank the musicians for their tasteful solos. The present writer particularly remembers one 2008 show in which his profuse thanks were repeated in several numbers, with Cohen at one point thanking the crowd for its applause. This was greeted with all 20,000 people in London’s O2 arena cheering him, and Cohen responding by again thanking them for their continued support.His shows continued to be jaw-dropping with the amount of exceptional songs on offer. “Famous Blue Raincoat” would be followed by the arch and knowing “I’m Your Man” or even “Sisters of Mercy” – a track which coincidentally shows his wide appeal: a well-known British rock band took it as its name. Even Nirvana namechecked Cohen in its own hit, “Pennyroyal Tea.”Cohen’s final album, “You Want It Darker” (reviewed here) gave strong hints that his time on earth was limited, with his gloomy intoning of the words “I’m ready my lord.” While he followed the release with contradictory statements about the amount of time he had left, the announcement of his passing on the Leonard Cohen Facebook page, curated by Sony in Canada, took many fans by surprise.There had been a number of other clues that he was not well: the final album was co-produced with his son, with the ailing star whispering, speaking, and murmuring into the microphone rather than singing. The couplets remained as sharp as ever and it will stand as one of his best, although the music remains subdued.Cohen’s rollercoaster career led to him joining a Buddhist order of monks at one point before returning to the stage. His early albums with their stark black-and-white covers put him on the musical map after some time in which following graduation he had lived in Greece with his lover Marianne Ihlen. “Bird on The Wire” was written after he spied a bird sitting on a telephone line she installed to their house, and “So Long Marianne” is also one of the songs inspired by her. After her death this year, Cohen published a note to her touchingly saying, “our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon.”
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