Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” released on his 1984 album Various Positions, became his best-known song, but it arrived deep into a career that had begun in poetry and fiction. Born Leonard Norman Cohen in Westmount, Canada, on September 21, 1934, he worked as a poet and novelist through the 1950s and early 1960s before beginning his music career in 1966. His writing and songs returned repeatedly to faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, social conflict, desire, regret, and loss.

Cohen’s debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), introduced a spare folk approach that continued on Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971), and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). In 1977, he made a marked stylistic departure with Death of a Ladies’ Man, which Phil Spector co-wrote and produced. Recent Songs (1979) brought his acoustic sensibility together with jazz, East Asian, and Mediterranean influences. By I’m Your Man in 1988, Cohen had moved toward synthesized production, while 1992’s The Future paired dark writing with references to political and social unrest.

After returning in 2001 with Ten New Songs, a major hit in Canada and Europe, Cohen released Dear Heather in 2004. The following year, he learned that his manager had stolen most of his money and sold his publishing rights. He resumed touring to recoup his losses, embarking on a successful series of tours between 2008 and 2013. His final run of albums included Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems (2014), and You Want It Darker (2016), released three weeks before his death on November 7, 2016. His fifteenth studio album, Thanks for the Dance, was released posthumously in November 2019.

Cohen 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 also made a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour. In 2011, he received a Prince of Asturias Award for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize. Rolling Stone placed him at number 103 on its 2023 list of the greatest singers of all time.