Album Review: Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

4/5

Several months ago Leonard Cohen wrote to Marianne Ihlen, the lover and muse who had inspired ‘Marianne’ and ‘Bird On A Wire’. She was desperately ill with leukaemia and the end was near.

“Well, Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart,” Cohen said in the missive. “I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.”