When Leonard Cohen sang "I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice" in his song "Tower of Song" in 1988, most people took it as a self-deprecating joke. No one regarded him as one of the great vocalists of his generation when he released his first albums in the late '60s, given the dour, sometimes flat tone of his delivery. Conventional wisdom has it that his albums succeeded not because of his singing but despite it. But a funny thing happened: as the man grew older and his instrument turned rougher and craggier, he learned to make it more eloquent than before, and he was giving some of his best and most seductive performances in the last decade of his life. In 2016, as Cohen was sitting side by side with mortality, he recorded a final batch of songs, nine of which appeared on his last album, You Want It Darker, issued just three weeks before his death in November 2016. Three years on, Leonard's son Adam Cohen, a singer and songwriter in his own right, has married nine more vocal performances from his father's last months to backing tracks, and the result is the album Thanks for the Dance. Several notable artists contributed their talents to this project -- among them Jennifer Warnes, Beck, and Leslie Feist -- yet it's Leonard Cohen's vocals and lyrics that dominate the spotlight, and with his voice reduced to a dry, throaty whisper, he manages to make some of the most compelling music of his life. In his frailty, Cohen finds a strength that's little short of miraculous, suggesting the musings of a prophet as he speak-sings these messages of darkness and light in the spaces between love and the ultimate finality. Adam Cohen has done a superb job with this material; the arrangements created after the fact sound like they were always meant to serve these songs, and they add a weight and dynamics that never distract from his father's words, some of which ("Puppets" and "It's Torn") recall the themes of his work of the early '70s, but mostly reflect the sweet, bitter wisdom that comes in life's final act. At a bit under 30 minutes, Thanks for the Dance might not seem to be a major statement at first glance, but it's a missive that carries startling power, and it's clearly not built from scraps and leftovers, but assembled with a love that's equal to the knowledge Cohen put into it. This adds more documentation to the wholly unexpected and satisfying final act of a truly great songwriter, and it deserves your attention.When Leonard Cohen sang "I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice" in his song "Tower of Song" in 1988, most people took it as a self-deprecating joke. No one regarded him as one of the great vocalists of his generation when he released his first albums in the late '60s, given the dour, sometimes flat tone of his delivery. Conventional wisdom has it that his albums succeeded not because of his singing but despite it. But a funny thing happened: as the man grew older and his instrument turned rougher and craggier, he learned to make it more eloquent than before, and he was giving some of his best and most seductive performances in the last decade of his life. In 2016, as Cohen was sitting side by side with mortality, he recorded a final batch of songs, nine of which appeared on his last album, You Want It Darker, issued just three weeks before his death in November 2016. Three years on, Leonard's son Adam Cohen, a singer and songwriter in his own right, has married nine more vocal performances from his father's last months to backing tracks, and the result is the album Thanks for the Dance. Several notable artists contributed their talents to this project -- among them Jennifer Warnes, Beck, and Leslie Feist -- yet it's Leonard Cohen's vocals and lyrics that dominate the spotlight, and with his voice reduced to a dry, throaty whisper, he manages to make some of the most compelling music of his life. In his frailty, Cohen finds a strength that's little short of miraculous, suggesting the musings of a prophet as he speak-sings these messages of darkness and light in the spaces between love and the ultimate finality. Adam Cohen has done a superb job with this material; the arrangements created after the fact sound like they were always meant to serve these songs, and they add a weight and dynamics that never distract from his father's words, some of which ("Puppets" and "It's Torn") recall the themes of his work of the early '70s, but mostly reflect the sweet, bitter wisdom that comes in life's final act. At a bit under 30 minutes, Thanks for the Dance might not seem to be a major statement at first glance, but it's a missive that carries startling power, and it's clearly not built from scraps and leftovers, but assembled with a love that's equal to the knowledge Cohen put into it. This adds more documentation to the wholly unexpected and satisfying final act of a truly great songwriter, and it deserves your attention.false2025-11-07 21:24:47Thanks for the Dance20192019-11-222019-11-2229FolkFolk RockPopRockSinger-Songwriter11239223321932903cac2-b590-4475-8732-ee07e9daec6765314b12-0e08-43fa-ba33-baaa7b874c1554d8e12b-a37a-4071-9c46-b7ca25aff9f8/media/data/media5/Music/Leonard Cohen/Thanks for the Dance/folder.jpgLeonard CohenLeonard CohenLeonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, social and political conflict, and sexual and romantic love, desire, regret, and loss. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, he received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.
Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not begin a music career until 1966. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His 1977 record Death of a Ladies' Man, co-written and produced by Phil Spector, was a move away from Cohen's previous minimalist sound.
In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz, East Asian, and Mediterranean influences. Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah", was released on his seventh album, Various Positions (1984). I'm Your Man in 1988 marked Cohen's turn to synthesized productions. In 1992, Cohen released its follow-up, The Future, which had dark lyrics and references to political and social unrest.
Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of Ten New Songs, a major hit in Canada and Europe. His eleventh album, Dear Heather, followed in 2004. In 2005, Cohen discovered that his manager had stolen most of his money and sold his publishing rights, prompting a return to touring to recoup his losses. Following a successful string of tours between 2008 and 2013, he released three albums in the final years of his life: Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems (2014), and You Want It Darker (2016), the last of which was released three weeks before his death. His posthumous, fifteenth, and final studio album Thanks for the Dance, was released in November 2019.
In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked him number 103 in their "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" list.