Leonard Cohen’s farewell masterpiece: Whether this is goodbye or not, “You Want it Darker” is powerful and real - Salon.com
Besides a very few exceptions — jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, composer Leos Janacek, novelists Philip Roth and Ursula Le Guin — has anyone turned out so much good work after the age of 60 or so?
At 82, it might also be his last.
And it’s truly reason to bow to a Canadian/Jewish/Buddhist deity that the new Cohen record is dark, quiet and utterly beautiful.
Its mournfulness is cut with a celebration of the complexity of human life.
You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame
They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want…
*intoning "Hineni," a Hebrew term for addressing God that translates as "Here I am."
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Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker - The New Yorker
