Leonard Cohen Has Passed at Age 82: His New and Now Final Album Is Streaming Free Online

in Music | October 21st, 2016 7 Comments

Update on Novem­ber 10: We just got news that Leonard Cohen has passed, only a short few weeks after releas­ing his final album, avail­able below. The sad news comes from his Face­book page. 

Leonard Cohen’s new album You Want It Dark­er is stream­ing free online for a lim­it­ed time, thanks to NPR’s First Lis­ten site. Now 82 years old, and sens­ing that time is run­ning short, Cohen offers, writes Rolling Stone, a “gift to music lovers: a real­is­ti­cal­ly grim, spir­i­tu­al­ly radi­ant and deeply poet­ic world­view, gen­er­al­ly spiked with a roman­tic thrum and an exis­ten­tial wink.”

Hear the title track above. And stream the com­plete album right below. You can pur­chase your own copy of Cohen’s album on Ama­zon and iTunes. We’d also encour­age you to read this new pro­file of Cohen, writ­ten by The New York­er’s long-time edi­tor David Rem­nick. It’s quite poignant.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Young Leonard Cohen Reads His Poet­ry in 1966 (Before His Days as a Musi­cian Began)

A Day in the Life of Zen Monk Leonard Cohen: A 1996 Doc­u­men­tary

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen: The Poet-Musi­cian Fea­tured in a 1965 Doc­u­men­tary

Leonard Cohen Reads The Great World War I Poem, “In Flan­ders Fields”


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Comments (7)
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  • Cheryl A Milton says:
    October 21, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    I found this album amaz­ing. I am old­er (67) and have always felt music was an expres­sion of my life and those that I love. I recent­ly lost my friend and part­ner of 38 years and so this spoke vol­umes to me. Thank you Leonard Cohen for this release of my emo­tions. Excel­lent work

    Reply
  • margaret konopacki says:
    October 22, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    A mil­lion can­dles burn­ing for the love that nev­er came.….. You want it dark­er.… Im ready my Lord.…

    Leonard is the most bril­liant poet I have ever lis­tened to and read and he has a way of cre­at­ing such a unique love force even when approach­ing life in black.….

    I was lucky enough to work with him on I Am A Hotel in the 1980’s in Toron­to and will nev­er for­get his sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the shoot and the peo­ple and how each per­son on set treat­ed each oth­er… He was an Orig­i­nal in so many ways and I was so lucky when in a shot the direc­tor decid­ed that a hand­ful of doves had to fly through the shot and the birds were thrown from a lad­der towards Leonard on the set. One of the birds actu­al­ly did not fly but dropped and hit the lad­der… Leonard was appalled and my job was as a PA at the time respon­si­ble for dri­ving him around so.… he stormed out of the set area and left the build­ing with me in close pur­suit along with oth­er mem­bers of the pro­duc­tion team.… Lets get out of here he said to me and off we drove in my very mod­est car and when we drove by a mall he told me to stop and we parked and walked to a liquor store and he bought a small mick­ey of whiskey and we sat at that mall for a bit drink­ing a bit.… no cell phones back then… and after about an hour he was ready to return on set.
    I was so star struck and hap­py to be sit­ting beside the Great Leonard Cohen all dressed in black and speak­ing only about things that mat­tered… and he had a great sense of humour.… what a ladies man!!!!

    I loved Leonard Cohen then and I love him still.… Thank you for being an orig­i­nal and being just YOU.… From Suzanne takes you down to the place by the riv­er to this incred­i­ble new baby.…. A DIFFERENT POINT of VIEW always.…

    Thank you… thank you.…

    A lov­ing fan.

    Reply
  • john richardson says:
    October 23, 2016 at 3:32 pm

    I too have just lost my life­long part­ner ‚best friend and wife of 40 years I am 60 years.We “got ” leonard from “Im your man” and then went back to ear­li­er times, from suzanne onward.I read the arti­cle about his response to learn­ing of her ill­ness ‚if she stretched out her hand he would­n’t be far behind her.My wife was still alive then .
    I read with inter­est as always , today of his new album. Im still “wait­ing for the miricle”.outside the cla­sics no one I know speaks to the heart like leonard.

    Reply
  • ronald bacon says:
    October 24, 2016 at 8:04 am

    None can com­pete with the insight­ful beau­ty and pain in leonard’s lyrics
    A genius i will always admire

    Reply
  • Bruce Morgen says:
    October 29, 2016 at 11:42 am

    An excel­lent review: http://nodepression.com/album-review/leonard-cohen%E2%80%99s-memento-mori?mc_cid=91280a52e3&mc_eid=d1f5a3f6e2

    Reply
  • John Wise says:
    November 11, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    I think Cohen would have used the word “died” rather than the wimpy euphemism “passed”.

    Reply
  • Avell Kro says:
    November 14, 2016 at 6:03 am

    I love LC’s quo­ta­tion about every­thing being cracked — that’s how the light gets let in. He was a great poet of our times and will con­tin­ue to inspire us for many years to come.
    He was­n’t afraid to go into the dark places — or if he was he did­n’t let it stop him.
    I hope that my own work will show some of his beau­ti­ful fear­less­ness.
    Avell

    Reply

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