In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen spoke of his poor health.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs. Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know,” Cohen told the magazine. “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.”
At the time, it was difficult to parse out what to make of the statement. After all, Cohen had always been dark: In his 50s, he sang “My friends are gone, and my hair is gray. I ache in the places where I used to play.” His last album was titled “You Want It Darker.” In a song titled, “The Future,” he sang, “I’ve seen the future, baby: It is murder.”
Then, on Nov. 7, the music legend died.
Three days later, when his death announced, no cause of death was given, though it’s been reported he had cancer.
In a statement released Wednesday, Robert Kory, Cohen’s manager, said the musician died in his sleep after falling in the middle of the night on Nov. 7. As a silver lining, Cohen’s wish of death not being “too uncomfortable” was granted – Kory said the death was peaceful.
Here is his statement, via Cohencentric:
“Leonard Cohen died during his sleep following a fall in the middle of the night on November 7th. The death was sudden, unexpected, and peaceful. He is survived by his children Adam and Lorca, and his three grandchildren Cassius (Adam’s son), and Viva and Lyon (Lorca’s daughter and son).”
Cohen’s funeral took place on Sunday. He was buried in an “unadorned pine box, next to his mother and father,” which is “exactly as he’d asked.”
His son Adam Cohen, a musician himself, described the service and offered a written eulogy of sorts on Facebook.
“As I write this I’m thinking of my father’s unique blend of self-deprecation and dignity, his approachable elegance, his charisma without audacity, his old-world gentlemanliness and the hand-forged tower of his work,” Adam wrote. “There’s so much I wish I could thank him for, just one last time. I’d thank him for the comfort he always provided, for the wisdom he dispensed, for the marathon conversations, for his dazzling wit and humor.”