Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) dies at 82
By Hiram Lee
23 November 2016
Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died in Los Angeles November 7 at the age of 82. His manager Robert Kory subsequently revealed that Cohen, who had cancer, died in his sleep after falling during the night.
Leonard Cohen in 1988 [Photo credit: Gorupdebesanez]
Cohen had just been through one of the busiest periods of his career. In 2008, after some 15 years away from the stage, Cohen made a successful return to touring and released a number of new albums in quick succession. His most recent album You Want it Darker was released on October 21.
In July, Cohen penned a touching letter to an ailing Marianne Ihlen, the woman who had inspired a number of his songs, most famously “So Long, Marianne.” She died July 28. Cohen wrote to 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. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.” This was Cohen at his most tender and humane.
When Cohen (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal) first emerged as an artist some 60 years ago, it was not as a musician, but as a poet and a novelist. His first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956. His sexually explicit novel Beautiful Losers (1966) was controversial in its day. He continued to write and publish throughout his career, but it was as a songwriter that he achieved his greatest popular success.
