Poet And Musician Leonard Cohen Dies At 82

Canadian musician Leonard Cohen, melancholy poet and symbol of a post-sixty-huitarde generation lulled by his deep voice, has died at the age of 82 years, announced Thursday his entourage.


"It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of the poet, composer and legendary artist Leonard Cohen," wrote his agent on the Facebook page of the musician.

"We lost one of the most prolific and respected visionary in the world of music," the statement said. A ceremony will be held in the United States, in Los Angeles where he lived, "at a later date."

"The family asks that you respect their privacy during their mourning," the statement added.

"Leonard Cohen was a peerless musician, whose stunning and original work has touched generations of fans and artists", wrote on his side his record company, Sony Music.

"We are proud and we feel extremely privileged to have been able to celebrate his art all throughout a career that covered six decades. The family of Sony Music Canada joins the world in mourning Leonard Cohen" continues the statement said.

Denis Coderre, the mayor of Montreal, birthplace of Leonard Cohen, announced on Twitter that he had asked "to put our half-mast. We will make sure to celebrate as it should be one of our greatest Montrealers" .

- 'I will follow you soon' -

Born September 21, 1934 into a wealthy Jewish family in Montreal, Leonard Cohen wrote some of the most haunting hymns recent decades.




Several generations have hummed and danced to his most famous songs. "Suzanne" and "So Long Marianne" illustrate, in 1967, a first collection of songs marked by unhappiness and heartache.

His next album, two years later, is both marked by influences country with "Bird on the Wire" - one of his biggest hits, taken up by many artists as Johnny Cash and Joe Cocker - but also darker songs. "The Partisan", adaptation of "The Lament of the Partisan", or "Seems so long ago, Nancy" reflect this darkness.

With a heritage and undisputed influence, Leonard Cohen had disappeared from the scene in the 1990s, preferring to take refuge in Buddhism, even becoming a monk in 1996.

Stripped by its impresario, Cohen returned to the track less than a decade later, more creative and productive than ever.

He was then held at his age, it was time to be less wise with his health and form of histrionics, he had taken as a resolution to start smoking.

It was celebrated on September 21 its 82 years with a new album haunted by death, drowning his loneliness in songs still dark.

With his deep voice still whispered, Leonard Cohen questioned in "Darker You Want It," his 14th album, the nature of man and of an all-powerful god.

Death hovered in this album, as a reminder of an inexorable outcome probably more evident in July with the death of his muse Marianne Ihlen, became famous love in his song "So Long Marianne".

Shaped glance, the cover of his latest album shows a Leonard Cohen unshaven, a cigarette between his fingers.

It appeared weakened in an interview published in October in the New Yorker magazine. "He was sitting in a large blue medical chair to ease the pain of compression fractures in his back," wrote journalist David Remnick, who had met him.

"It is now very thinned, but still beautiful, with pepper and salt hair and piercing eyes. He was wearing a suit well-cut blue night, even in the 1960s he was wearing suits," he described.

"I think I follow you soon," wrote Leonard Cohen just after the death of Marianne Ihlen. "Know that I am so close behind you if you reach out, I think you can touch mine."