Influential singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen best known for his song “hallelujah” has died at the age of 82, a statement released on his Facebook page said Thursday.
“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away,” the statement read. “We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.”
According to the statement a memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date.
Cohen, also renowned as a poet, novelist and aspiring Zen monk, blended folk music with a darker, sexual edge that won him fans around the world and among fellow musicians like Bob Dylan and R.E.M.
He remained wildly popular into his 80s, touring as recently as earlier this year and releasing a new album just last month.
His "Hallelujah" became a cult hit when it was covered by musician Jeff Buckley in 1994, and has become a modern standard since.
Cohen, who once said he got into music because he couldn't make a living as a poet, rose to prominence during the folk music revival of the 1960s. During those years, he traveled the folk circuit with the likes of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and others as they were moving popular music away from a reliance on lightweight pop lyrics to songs that contained deeply personal meanings.
His contemporary Kris Kristofferson once said that he wanted the opening lines to Cohen's "Bird on a Wire," on his tombstone.
They would be a perfect epitaph for Cohen himself: "Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free."
Film at 11.... 🙏
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9 years ago |
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