06/18/2026
His name was Leonard Cohen.
He was born in 1934 in Montreal, Quebec. His family was Jewish. His grandfather was a rabbi. His father died when Leonard was nine years old.
He started writing poetry as a teenager. He published his first book of poems at 22. He was already a well-known Canadian poet by 25.
He turned to music in his 30s.
His voice was unusual. He could not really sing in the traditional sense. He spoke his lyrics more than he sang them. Music critics in the 1960s were skeptical.
He kept going anyway.
In 1984, he released an album called "Various Positions." On it was a song he had spent five years writing.
He had filled notebooks with possible verses. He had written 80 verses in total before whittling them down. He had agonized over every word.
The song was called "Hallelujah."
Columbia Records, his label at the time, refused to release the album in the United States. They thought it would not sell.
The song was released in Canada and Europe in 1984.
Nothing happened.
It sold modestly. It was reviewed politely. It disappeared.
Then, slowly, it started to come back.
John Cale, the Welsh musician, recorded a stripped-down version in 1991. Jeff Buckley, a young American singer-songwriter, recorded another version in 1994 — using Cale's arrangement.
Buckley's version became famous after his death.
The song was used in the soundtrack of the animated film "Shrek" in 2001.
Suddenly, "Hallelujah" was everywhere.
It was covered by Rufus Wainwright. By k.d. lang. By Bon Jovi. By Bono. By Justin Timberlake. By Pentatonix. By thousands of choir directors, wedding singers, funeral musicians, and karaoke participants in every language on Earth.
It has been covered over 300 times by major recording artists.
It has been performed at Olympic ceremonies, presidential inaugurations, royal funerals, and the funerals of ordinary people in every country.
It is, by many measures, the most-covered song in modern recorded history.
Leonard Cohen kept writing.
He continued recording. He continued touring. He became, in his later years, one of the most respected songwriters alive.
He won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2003 — the highest level of the Order.
In 2016, he released his final album, "You Want It Darker." He knew he was dying. He had written the album as a farewell.
He died on November 7, 2016.
He was 82 years old.
His funeral was small. He was buried in a simple Jewish ceremony in Montreal, in the Shaar Hashomayim Congregation cemetery on Mount Royal.
The week he died, "Hallelujah" was quoted at two state funerals on two different continents.
He had spent five years writing one song.
That song outlived him.
That song is still being sung today, every single day, in every part of the world.
A Montreal Jewish poet.
A song he agonized over for half a decade.
A career a record company once dismissed.
A voice the whole world eventually learned to love.
He was, throughout his career, deeply, quietly Canadian.
He spoke openly about his Montreal Jewish heritage. He spoke openly about his life on Hydra, the Greek island where he lived for years. He spoke openly about his struggles with depression. He spoke openly about his Buddhist practice. He spoke openly about his deep, sustained love for his city of Montreal.
He never tried to be anything other than himself.
That is a Canadian artist.
That is a Canadian story.
That is a Canadian voice that the world chose to listen to.
A Canadian poet wrote the song that the world will probably still be singing 200 years from now.
A Canadian song that has comforted the dying and inspired the grieving and reminded all of us — Jewish, Christian, secular, Buddhist, Muslim, indifferent — that there is still beauty in a broken world.
Hallelujah.
That is the word he gave us.
We owe him more than we will ever fully give. 🍁
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