The Baffled King Composing Hallelujah

image via Last.fm

This has been a year of mourning for the music community. We lost David Bowie in early January, then Prince in April, and now Leonard Cohen as we approach the close of 2016.

I have only been familiar with Cohen's work for about a couple of weeks. My boyfriend introduced him as the creator of Hallelujah, a song that I have always loved but had never heard the original version of. Which isn't actually that uncommon. Pitchfork released a post just yesterday marveling at the number of places this song has resurfaced, having been covered, tweaked, and arguably misinterpreted for a innumerable occasions.

 I have not yet explored the lyrically rich career of Leonard Cohen, but I'm confident that You Want It Darker, his last album, is a masterpiece. His voice aged so well, its already haunting, dirge-like tone accompanied by a depth that can only be brought on my maturity. The circumstances have become reminiscent of David Bowie's dark and beautiful Blackstar, preceding the artist's death by only days.

Leonard Cohen will be missed, sorely. As we continue to mourn the loss of this extraordinary writer and musician, I hope we can find comfort in all that he has left us to remember him by.