Music

Leonard Cohen says he's ready to die

by Jeremy Mersereau

Not many artists can say that they’ve accomplished as much creatively as 82-year-old legend Leonard Cohen, but even legends have to pass on. The last person to take issue with this course of events is Cohen himself, as a new interview in The New Yorker makes clear.

In a new profile of Cohen and his decades-long career, Cohen lets the world know he’s come to terms with his mortality, and that he’s not too upset about it. Cohen’s latest album You Want It Darker is out October 21st, and Cohen says it may be his last, as the prospect of recording another one after it seems increasingly improbable.

Like many prolific artists, Cohen has has reams of unfinished, unrecorded material, but due to his declining health, he doubts if he’ll be able to finish a new collection before the inevitable occurs:

“I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs,” Cohen says in the interview. “Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me”.

Cohen is reportedly considering issuing a new collection of poems “like pages of the Talmud, are surrounded by passages of interpretation,” but any new material will probably never be performed live. In the profile, Cohen confirms that his touring days are likely behind him, saying that he’s basically “confined to barracks” on account of his health.

“The big change is the proximity to death,” Cohen says about the current state of his career. “I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, also, that’s OK. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun.”