Leonard Cohen, the hugely influential singer and songwriter whose work spanned nearly 50 years, died Monday at the age of 82. Cohen’s label, Sony Music Canada, confirmed his death on the singer’s Facebook page Thursday evening.

“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away,” the statement read. “We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief.”

“Leonard Cohen died during his sleep following a fall in the middle of the night on November 7th,” Cohen’s manager Robert Kory said in a statement. “The death was sudden, unexpected and peaceful.”

“My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records,” Cohen’s son Adam wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone. “He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor.”

Before his death, the songwriter requested that he be laid to rest “in a traditional Jewish rite beside his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents,” his rabbi Adam Scheier wrote in a statement.

“Unmatched in his creativity, insight and crippling candor, Leonard Cohen was a true visionary whose voice will be sorely missed,” Kory wrote in a separate statement. “I was blessed to call him a friend, and for me to serve that bold artistic spirit firsthand, was a privilege and great gift. He leaves behind a legacy of work that will bring insight, inspiration and healing for generations to come.”

Cohen was the dark eminence among a small pantheon of extremely influential singer-songwriters to emerge in the Sixties and early Seventies. Only Bob Dylan exerted a more profound influence upon his generation, and perhaps only Paul Simon and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell equaled him as a song poet.

Cohen’s haunting bass voice, nylon-stringed guitar patterns and Greek-chorus backing vocals shaped evocative songs that dealt with love and hate, sex and spirituality, war and peace, ecstasy and depression. He was also the rare artist of his generation to enjoy artistic success into his Eighties, releasing his final album, You Want It Darker, earlier this year.

“I never had the sense that there was an end,” he said in 1992. “That there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot.”

“For many of us, Leonard Cohen was the greatest songwriter of them all,” Nick Cave, who covered Cohen classics like “Avalanche,” “I’m Your Man” and “Suzanne,” said in a statement. “Utterly unique and impossible to imitate no matter how hard we tried. He will be deeply missed by so many.”

Leonard Norman Cohen was born on September 21st, 1934, in Westmount, Quebec. He learned guitar as a teenager and formed a folk group called the Buckskin Boys. Early exposure to Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca turned him toward poetry – while a flamenco guitar teacher convinced him to trade steel strings for nylon. After graduating from McGill University, Cohen moved to the Greek island of Hydra, where he purchased a house for $1,500 with the help of a modest trust fund established by his father, who died when Leonard was nine. While living on Hydra, Cohen published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964) and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966).

Frustrated by poor book sales, and tired of working in Montreal’s garment industry, Cohen visited New York in 1966 to investigate the city’s robust folk-rock scene. He met folk singer Judy Collins, who later that year included two of his songs, including the early hit “Suzanne,” on her album In My Life. His New York milieu included Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, and, most importantly, the haunting German singer Nico, whose despondent delivery he may have emulated on his exquisite 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Cohen quickly became the songwriter’s songwriter of choice for artists like Collins, James Taylor, Willie Nelson and many others. His black-and-white album photos offered an arresting image to go with his stark yet lovely songs. His next two albums, Songs From a Room (1969) and Songs of Love and Hate (1971), benefited from the spare production of Bob Johnston, along with a group of seasoned session musicians that included Charlie Daniels.

During the Seventies, Cohen set out on the first of the many long, intense tours he would reprise toward the end of his career. “One of the reasons I’m on tour is to meet people,” he told Rolling Stone in 1971. “I consider it a reconnaissance. You know, I consider myself like in a military operation. I don’t feel like a citizen.” His time on tour inspired the live sound producer John Lissauer brought to his 1974 masterpiece, New Skin for the Old Ceremony. However, he risked a production catastrophe by hiring wall-of-sound maximalist Phil Spector to work on his next album, Death of a Ladies Man, whose adversarial creation resulted in a Rolling Stone review titled “Leonard Cohen’s Doo-Wop Nightmare.”

Cohen’s relationship with Suzanne Elrod during most of the Seventies resulted in two children, the photographer Lorca Cohen and Adam Cohen, who leads the group Low Millions. Cohen was well known for his wandering ways, and his most stable relationships were with backing singers Laura Branigan, Sharon Robinson, Anjani Thomas, and, most notably, Jennifer Warnes, who he wrote with and produced (Warnes frequently performed Cohen’s music). After indulging in a variety of international styles on Recent Songs (1979), Cohen accorded Warnes full co-vocal credit on 1984’s Various Positions.

Various Positions included “Hallelujah,” a meditation on love, sex and music that would become Cohen’s best-known composition thanks to Jeff Buckley’s incandescent 1994 reinterpretation. Its greatness wasn’t recognized by Cohen’s label, however. By way of informing him that Columbia Records would not be releasing Various Positions, label head Walter Yetnikoff reportedly told Cohen, “Look, Leonard; we know you’re great, but we don’t know if you’re any good.” Cohen returned to the label in 1988 with I’m Your Man, an album of sly humor and social commentary that launched the synths-and-gravitas style he continued on The Future (1992).

In 1995, Cohen halted his career, entered the Mt. Baldy Zen Center outside of Los Angeles, became an ordained Buddhist monk and took on the Dharma name Jikan (“silence”). His duties included cooking for Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the priest and longtime Cohen mentor who died in 2014 at the age of 104. Cohen broke his musical silence in 2001 with Ten New Songs, a collaboration with Sharon Robinson, and Dear Heather (2004), a relatively uplifting project with current girlfriend Anjani Thomas. While never abandoning Judaism, the Sabbath-observing songwriter attributed Buddhism to curbing the depressive episodes that had always plagued him.

The final act of Cohen’s career began in 2005, when Lorca Cohen began to suspect her father’s longtime manager, Kelley Lynch, of embezzling funds from his retirement account. In fact, Lynch had robbed Cohen of more than $5 million. To replenish the fund, Cohen undertook an epic world tour during which he would perform 387 shows from 2008 to 2013. He continued to record as well, releasing Old Ideas (2012) and Popular Problems, which hit U.S. shops a day after his eightieth birthday. “[Y]ou depend on a certain resilience that is not yours to command, but which is present,” he told Rolling Stone upon its release. “And if you can sense this resilience or sense this capacity to continue, it means a lot more at this age than it did when I was 30, when I took it for granted.”

When the Grand Tour ended in December 2013, Cohen largely vanished from the public eye. In October 2016, he released You Want It Darker, produced by his son Adam. Severe back issues made it difficult for Cohen to leave his home, so Adam placed a microphone on his dining room table and recorded him on a laptop. The album was met with rave reviews, though a New Yorker article timed to its release revealed that he was in very poor health. “I am ready to die,” he said. “I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

The singer-songwriter later clarified that he was “exaggerating.” “I’ve always been into self-dramatization,” Cohen said last month. “I intend to live forever.”</s>Canadian singer Leonard Cohen performs on stage at the Isle of Wight Festival on August 30 1970. (Photo by Tony Russell/Redferns)

This file photo taken on July 20, 2008 shows Canadian singer Leonard Cohen perform during the international Festival of Beincassim. Leonard Cohen, the storied musician and poet hailed as one of the most visionary artists of his generation, has died at age 82, his publicist announced on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / Diego TUSONDIEGO TUSON/AFP/Getty Images

Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has passed away. He was 82 years old. LOS ANGELES - JUNE 24: Singer/songwriter/poet Leonard Cohen attends the Los Angeles premiere of the film "Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man" on June 24, 2006 at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre during the LA Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

This file photo taken on July 5, 2013 shows Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen performs at the Auditorium Stravinski during the 47th Montreux Jazz Festival. Leonard Cohen, the storied musician and poet hailed as one of the most visionary artists of his generation, has died at age 82, his publicist announced on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINIFABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

This file photo taken on January 16, 2012 shows Canadian singer and poet Leonard Cohen takes off his hat to salute in Paris. Leonard Cohen, the storied musician and poet hailed as one of the most visionary artists of his generation, has died at age 82, his publicist announced on November 10, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / JOEL SAGETJOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

The sad news, reported on the Bird on a Wire singer’s Facebook page, comes just weeks after the beloved Canadian star told the New Yorker magazine he was “ready to die” in an interview.

He told the publication, “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs (I’m working on). 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 clarified his remarks days later, while promoting his new album You Want It Darker, explaining he was speaking philosophically.

The Everybody Knows singer hosted a listening session for his new album in Los Angeles on 13 October and addressed reports he was dying, stating, “I said I was ready to die recently and I think I was exaggerating. I’ve always been into self-dramatization. I intend to live forever.”

A post on his Facebook page on Thursday evening reads: “It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.”

There were no details about the cause of Cohen’s death. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date, according to the announcement.

The Montreal-born singer, who was dubbed “the high priest of pathos” was a singer, songwriter, poet and legendary ladies man. His hits also included Suzanne, I’m Your Man, and Hallelujah. You Want It Darker was his 14th album.

"My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records. He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor."

"Leonard Cohen left an indelible legacy and his artistry will be cherished around the world. We join with his millions of fans in expressing our profound sadness and offer our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones," Shane Carter, President, Sony Music Entertainment Canada."

“Leonard Cohen was an unparalleled artist whose stunning body of original work has been embraced by generations of fans and artists alike. We are proud and feel extremely privileged to have celebrated his artistry over a career spanning six decades. The Sony Music Canada family joins the world in mourning Leonard Cohen’s passing.”</s>"It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away," a statement on the Facebook page said. "We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific visionaries."

The statement did not provide further details on Cohen's death, and representatives for the singer could not be reached immediately for comment. It said a memorial was planned in Los Angeles, where Cohen had lived for many years.

Singer Roseanne Cash echoed the lyrics from Cohen's song "Anthem" when she said in a tweet: "Leonard Cohen is dead. There's a crack in everything. No light yet."

Cohen, a native of Quebec, was already a celebrated poet and novelist when he moved to New York in 1966 at age 31 to break into the music business.

Before long, critics were comparing him to Bob Dylan for the lyrical force of his songwriting.

Although he influenced many musicians and won many honors, including induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada, Cohen rarely made the pop music charts with his sometimes moody folk-rock.

But Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah," in which he invoked the biblical King David and drew parallels between physical love and a desire for spiritual connection, has been covered hundreds of times since he released it in 1984.

"Hallelujah's" long road to mass appeal was matched by Cohen's own painstaking approach to writing it. He spent five years penning drafts, at one point banging his head on the floor of a hotel room in frustration.

Many of Cohen's songs became hits for other artists, including Judy Collins, who helped Cohen gain fame by recording some of his early compositions in the 1960s.

Cohen's most ardent admirers compared his works to spiritual prophecy. He sang about religion, with references to Jesus Christ and Jewish traditions, as well as love and sex, political upheaval, regret and what he once called the search for "a kind of balance in the chaos of existence".

His lyrics were deeply personal and at times took on an element of prayer, as in 1969's "Bird on the Wire" in which he sang: "I swear by this song/And by all that I have done wrong/I will make it all up to thee."

Cohen's other well-known songs include "Suzanne," "So Long, Marianne," "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "The Future," an apocalyptic 1992 recording in which he darkly intoned: "I've seen the future, brother/It is murder."

The inspiration for "So Long, Marianne" was Cohen's longtime romantic partner and muse Marianne Ihlen, a Norwegian woman he met while living on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s.

A New Yorker profile of Cohen last month recounted how, after being told in July she had only a few days left to live, he emailed her: "Well Marianne, it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon."

Two days later, he learned in an email she had died after reading his note.

Cohen toured extensively from 2008 to 2013 after being unable to collect most of a $9 million judgment against his former manager and lover, Kelley Lynch, whom he accused of draining his savings.

He released an album, "You Want It Darker," just last month. But the New Yorker described him as ailing, quoting him as saying he was more or less "confined to barracks" in his Los Angeles residence.

Cohen's nasal voice and deep-bass, conversational vocals were criticized by some as being monotone. British musician Paul Weller once called his melancholy style "music to slit your wrists to.”

But his work was also suffused with irony and self-deprecating humor, often touching on his relationship with fame and his reputation for romantic entanglements.

"I got this rap as a kind of ladies' man," Cohen told Canada's Globe and Mail in 2007. "And as I say in one of the poems, it has caused me to laugh, when I think of all the lonely nights."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Cohen as "a most remarkable Montrealer" who had "managed to reach the highest of artistic achievement, both as an acclaimed poet and a world-renowned singer-songwriter.”

Born into a Jewish family in 1934 and raised in an affluent English-speaking neighborhood of the city, Cohen read Spanish poet Federico García Lorca as a teenager, learned to play guitar from a flamenco musician and formed a country band called the Buckskin Boys.

He attended McGill University in Montreal and published his first book of poetry shortly after graduation.

Living on grant money from the Canadian government and an inheritance from his family, Cohen published in the 1960s the poetry collections "The Spice-Box of Earth" and "Flowers for Hitler" and novels "The Favourite Game" and "Beautiful Losers."

But disillusioned with his meager income, Cohen turned to songwriting and landed an audition in 1967 with John Hammond, the producer who had discovered Dylan. Hammond signed him to Columbia Records, which would remain Cohen's label for five decades.

Cohen toured widely but also sought solace in meditation, far from the public eye. For part of the 1990s, Cohen lived in a Zen Buddhist monastery in the San Gabriel Mountains just outside Los Angeles, where he handled tasks as menial as cleaning toilets.

Cohen, who never married, is survived by his daughter, Lorca, and his son, Adam.</s>Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has led the tributes for singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen, who has died aged 82.

Mr Trudeau said: "It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of the legendary Leonard Cohen.

"A most remarkable Montrealer, Leonard Cohen managed to reach the highest of artistic achievement, both as an acclaimed poet and a world-renowned singer-songwriter.

"He will be fondly remembered for his gruff vocals, his self-deprecating humour and the haunting lyrics that made his songs the perennial favourite of so many generations.

"Leonard Cohen is as relevant today as he was in the 1960s. His ability to conjure the vast array of human emotion made him one of the most influential and enduring musicians ever. His style transcended the vagaries of fashion ... His music had withstood the test of time.

"On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I wish to express our deepest sympathies to Leonard Cohen's family, friends, colleagues and many, many fans.

"Leonard, no other artist's poetry and music felt or sounded quite like yours. We'll miss you."

The PM tweeted lyrics to Cohen's oft-covered song, Hallelujah: "There's a blaze of light In every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah #RIPLeonard".

Neil Portnow, chief executive of the Recording Academy who honoured Cohen with a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2010, said: "We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Grammy Award winner and 2010 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Leonard Cohen.

"During an influential career that spanned more than five decades, Leonard became one of the most revered pop poets and a musical touchstone for many songwriters. His extraordinary talent had a profound impact on countless singers and songwriters, as well as the wider culture.

"We have lost a cherished artist and our sincerest condolences go out to Leonard's family, friends, and collaborators. He will be missed terribly."

Former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello said the artist was "one of the greatest, deepest and wisest to ever bless us with his songs".

Canadian director Ron Howard tweeted: "One of my favorite singer-poets. RIP Legendary Musician Leonard Cohen."

Russell Crowe wrote: "Dear Leonard Cohen, thanks for the quiet nights, the reflection, the perspective, the wry smiles and the truth #towerofsong"

US comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted: "RIP Leonard Cohen. Ugh. It feels pointed, this death. It's making us remember songs like Come Healing which is a good one for these days."

US band OneRepublic tweeted: "R.I.P Leonard Cohen. U are without a doubt one of the greatest songs writers of any generation. THANK YOU for your life. #RIPLeonard".

American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor wrote on twitter; "Such sad news ... The great Leonard Cohen has passed away. Thank's for what your music has done for humanity ... Kindness, love, beauty, poetry."

Lily Allen tweeted: "As if the week could get any worse. Thank you Leonard Cohen, for all the things. Rest In Peace"

Bastille founder Dan Smith said: "Leonard Cohen was a proper genius. I was raised on his music."

Jennifer Hudson tweeted: "RIP Leonard Cohen. Thank you for you dedication to music, & writing one of my favorite songs to sing "Hallelujah".

Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig wrote on Twitter: "Leonard Cohen, what a guy - first album at 33 - dropped "Hallelujah" at 50 - first arena shows in his 70s He did it til the end. RIP"

US singer-songwriter Ben Folds tweeted: "Kids. Take a moment to listen to Leonard Cohen's song Going Home when you can. RIP L Cohen and thank you."

American composer Eric Whiteacre tweeted: "Leonard Cohen has passed, one of the truest and purest poets I know. There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."</s>Leonard Cohen, who has died at age 82, wandered the world reaching into his own melancholy and emerged as a sublime, spiritual voice for his generation.

Best known to his wide base of admirers as a singer and songwriter, Cohen entered the music industry relatively late and was first a poet, a solitary vocation that suited the personality of the shy and frequently depressed boy from Montreal.

But Cohen, who struggled with stage fright even at the height of his career, went on to record some of the 20th century’s most critically acclaimed, if not always commercially lucrative, songs including “So Long, Marianne” and “Suzanne” — named after two of the many women who became his muses — and the religiously intoned, frequently covered “Hallelujah.”

Born into a prosperous Jewish family that had founded synagogues in Canada, Cohen would be hailed as one of the all-time literary greats in his native country but spent his adult life constantly on the move both geographically and spiritually.

He started his music career in 1960s New York, where he would mingled with avant-garde artists such as painter Andy Warhol and late Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed who, on inducting the Canadian into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, said, “We’re so lucky to be alive at the same time as Leonard Cohen.”

Yet Cohen by temperament was more comfortable in relative solitude. He spent formative years on the Greek island of Hydra — where he could write at a leisurely distance from the world’s tumult — and spent the final chapter of his life as an ordained Zen Buddhist monk in a monastery near Los Angeles.

His record label announced his death on Thursday, saying he would have a private memorial service in Los Angeles.

Cohen would describe his work as confessional — but in a way that he hoped would explore his thoughts rather than wallow in them.

“I never thought I was really one of the big guys. So the work that was in front of me was just to cultivate this tiny corner of the field that I thought I knew something about, which was something to do with self-investigation without self-indulgence,” he told Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi in 2009.

Cohen maintained a lifelong fascination with the spiritual, considering himself Jewish even as he devoted himself to Buddhism and studied under a Hindu guru.

But Cohen — whose albums included “Death of a Ladies’ Man” — was also famous for his pursuit of sex, living over time with a number of women in various arrangements and writing “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” about a tryst with Janis Joplin at the famously bohemian New York address.

Cohen — whose last relationship was with his musical collaborator Anjani Thomas, a Hawaiian-born pianist — saw no contradiction between his sexual and spiritual sides.

“They are all connected. If you leave God out of sex, it becomes pornographic; if you leave sex out of God, it becomes self-righteous,” he told the Detroit Metro Times alternative weekly in 1993.

Cohen was also deeply attached to his mother — one book was entitled, in a subtle play on his album title, “Death of a Lady’s Man.” His mother was the daughter of a rabbi but also gave the future artist an early love of the music through her Lithuanian traditions.

Cohen’s father, a successful clothing merchant who raised the family in bilingual Montreal’s English-speaking community, died when the future artist was 9.

He inherited from his father his impeccable attention to clothing — Cohen’s ritual before every concert was to polish his own shoes — but the lack of a strong paternal figure also offered Cohen a chance for freedom.

Cohen would spend his evenings in the late-night bars and music clubs haunted by the sailors of Montreal — a massive shipping hub before the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959.

While his skills at instruments were never what made him famous, Cohen learned the foundations of guitar from a Spanish flamenco player he met in Montreal.

He also owed a debt to Spain through Federico Garcia Lorca, the poet and playwright who so inspired Cohen that he later named his daughter after him.

Romanticism for Lorca, who spent time in Cuba and was killed by pro-Franco forces in the Spanish Civil War, also led Cohen to head to communist Havana during the Bay of Pigs invasion by U.S.-backed exiles.

Sylvie Simmons, in a biography of Cohen, wrote that he flew home after his anxious mother sought out for him through the Canadian embassy in Havana, which tracked him down.

The artist hinted later in his song “Field Commander Cohen” that his Cuban sojourn put him off from revolutionary movements and he rarely dabbled directly in politics afterward.

One exception was his support for Israel, where he signed up to entertain troops in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Cohen also agreed to be a pallbearer at the funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, joining both Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter.

Cohen, already acclaimed as a poet, achieved his mainstream breakthrough with his 1966 novel “Beautiful Losers,” now considered a classic of Canadian literature.

A postmodern tale that merges the 1960s hippie era with the Native Canadian past, “Beautiful Losers” also alluded through its title to Cohen’s nearly debilitating depression as he completed it.

“I was wiped out; I didn’t like my life. I vowed I would just fill the pages with black or kill myself,” he told The Village Voice in 1967.

Cohen went through another tortured ordeal two decades later when he wrote “Hallelujah,” which took him three years and 70 drafts to complete.

Music journalist Alan Light, in a 2012 book on the song, wrote that Cohen grew so frustrated that he found himself in his underwear in a hotel room banging his head on the floor, feeling incapable of finishing.

Sung in Cohen’s increasingly husky voice, the song opens with a tale immediately recognizable to students of the Old Testament: “Now I’ve heard that there was a secret chord / That David played, and it pleased the Lord.”

The song was initially rejected by Cohen’s label. But it has since become an anthem of spiritual uplift, with celebrated versions by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright among many others.

Cohen had initially entered music in part to make money, with financial prospects much bleaker for a Canadian poet.

More than many artists from the 1960s, he managed to project a cool factor years later with tracks such as 1987’s “First We Take Manhattan,” in which Cohen recites his dark, ironic verse over synth-pop.

But Cohen late in his career found himself again performing for another reason — his longtime manager, whom he whole-heartedly trusted, swindled much of his savings.

Cohen, who had looked set to retire in the monastery, returned with albums in 2012, 2014 and just last month. None seemed like rote commercial exercises and all won rave reviews.

On his last album, “You Want It Darker,” Cohen appeared at peace with his own mortality.

“Hineni, hineni / I’m ready, my Lord,” Cohen intoned on the title track, employing Hebrew to say “Here I Am.”</s>Legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82, according to a Facebook post on his official fan page. His music label Sony Music Canada has also confirmed the news. 82-year-old Songwriting legend Leonard Cohen has a lifetime’s worth of masterpieces, many of which heavily feature religious themes. Now, at age 82, he

Legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82, according to a Facebook post on his official fan page. His music label Sony Music Canada has also confirmed the news.

82-year-old Songwriting legend Leonard Cohen has a lifetime’s worth of masterpieces, many of which heavily feature religious themes. Now, at age 82, he has released one of his most powerful songs ever. The track, “You Want It Darker,” is bleak, a religious confession from a man faced with his own mortality. It is full of allusions to Jewish liturgy, Christian liturgy, and Biblical texts and is an instant classic.

 “If You are the dealer, I’m out of the game

 If You are the healer, I’m broken and lame

 If Thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame

 You want it darker – we kill the flame.”

This video was produced by YT Wochit Entertainment using</s>A statement on his official Facebook page read, "It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific visionaries. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief."

Only last month, Cohen released his final album, "You Want It Darker," a deeply introspective work that focused thematically on mortality.

His elegantly penned songs, authored during a musical career that spanned six decades, won him comparison with such other songwriters of his era as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. His best-known song, "Hallelujah," has been recorded more than 200 times. Cohen never recorded a chart single and didn't place an album in the top 10 until he was in his 70s, but his ardent fans and musical peers viewed him as a musical craftsman with few equals.

As a songwriter, his themes encompassed love in all its manifestations, religion, faith and the tenuous state of the world. Like "Hallelujah," many of his tunes -- his breakthrough composition "Suzanne," "Bird on the Wire," "Tower of Song" -- became much-covered keystones of the popular songbook. His longtime accompanist Jennifer Warnes recorded several of his best-known works on her 1987 Cohen recital "Famous Blue Raincoat."

Like his art, his life evidenced a dynamic tension between sexuality and spirituality. He was a well-known womanizer whose many romantic partners included fellow Canadian musician Joni Mitchell and actress Rebecca De Mornay. Yet he would famously reject the world of the flesh: Torn by depression and doubt about his life and career, he withdrew to spend more than five years in a Buddhist monastery; he later studied at a Hindu ashram in Mumbai.

A financial crisis late in life led to a fresh burst of fame. After his business manager embezzled millions from him, the impecunious Cohen embarked on a 2008-10 world tour that restored his fortune and renewed his reputation. His 2012 album "Old Ideas," released at the age of 77, became his highest-charting release ever, debuting at No. 3 in the U.S.

He was born in Montreal. His father was a wealthy clothier, and he grew up in the city's affluent Westmount neighborhood. He was the grandson of Jewish European immigrants, and his maternal grandfather was a rabbi and Talmudic scholar. As a teen, he developed an admiration for the poetry of Spanish martyr Federico Garcia Lorca and a fondness for American country music.

At Montreal's McGill U., he was mentored by Irving Layton and Louis Dudek and rapidly acquired a reputation as one of the country's most brilliant young poets. He published a widely praised volume of early verse, "Let Us Compare Mythologies," in 1956, before brief post-graduate stints at McGill's law school and Columbia U. in New York.

Three more volumes of poetry soon followed; Cohen completed novels "The Favorite Game" (1963) and "Beautiful Losers" (1966) on the Greek island of Hydra, where he maintained a residence for years. But frustration with his literary career and a burgeoning interest in songwriting led him to move to New York City in 1966.

Through transplanted Canadian manager Mary Martin, Cohen met the popular folksinger Judy Collins, who began enthusiastically recording his songs. Her 1966 album "In My Life" included his "Suzanne" (his best-known early composition) and "Dress Rehearsal Rag"; the following year, another three songs were featured on Collins' No. 5 set "Wildflowers" (alongside a hit version of "Both Sides Now," written by Cohen's then-companion Joni Mitchell).

Cohen was ultimately signed to Columbia Records by legendary A&R man and producer John Hammond. Though it rose no higher than No. 83 in the U.S., his first album, 1968's "Songs of Leonard Cohen," included "Suzanne" and several other staples of the musician's repertoire. He was 34 when it was released. His moody, spoken-sung renditions of three songs from the album were later employed to powerful effect in Robert Altman's 1971 revisionist Western "McCabe & Mrs. Miller."

Cohen's next two albums, "Songs From a Room" (1969) and "Songs of Love and Hate" (1971), were both produced by Bob Johnston, who previously helmed Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" and "John Wesley Harding." Johnston also assembled the Nashville-based band that supported Cohen on a chaotic, drug-suffused 1970 tour that climaxed at England's massive Isle of Wight Festival.

A 1974 album with producer-keyboardist-bandleader John Lissauer, "New Skin for the Old Ceremony," won critical praise but did nothing to enhance Cohen's American sales. Sessions for a second album with Lissauer were shelved, and Cohen set to work in the studio with another client of his manager Marty Machat, producer Phil Spector.

Cohen and Spector co-wrote eight sex-steeped songs, which were recorded in L.A. sessions that saw guest appearances by Dylan and poet Allen Ginsberg. The notorious, hard-drinking producer's behavior became erratic. Spector famously held a gun to the musician's throat and said, "I love you, Leonard"; Cohen replied, "I hope so, Phil." The resultant album, the opulently produced "Death of a Ladies' Man," was released by Warner Bros. to mixed reviews in 1977.

Cohen returned to Columbia for the jazzy, Middle East-infused "Recent Songs" (1979). He collaborated with Canadian musician Lewis Furey on the 1984 film "Night Magic."

In '84, Columbia refused to release Cohen's album "Various Positions," and the collection was issued by independent label Passport. Ironically, the John Lissauer-produced set contained the song that ultimately became the songwriter's best-known composition: After a potent cover appeared on Jeff Buckley's 1994 album "Grace," "Hallelujah" took on the status of a contemporary standard. The same year, Cohen released a new book, a collection of modern psalms, "Book of Mercy."

The dark, often bleakly humorous "I'm Your Man" (1988) and "The Future" (co-produced by then-fiancee Rebecca De Mornay in 1992) were solid and well-reviewed latter-day additions to Cohen's catalog. But, suffering from a deepening depression, he retreated to L.A.'s Mt. Baldy Zen Center in 1994. There, he lived as a monk in a sparsely furnished hut for more than five years, acting as personal assistant to his master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, known as Roshi.

After leaving Mt. Baldy to study with Hindu teacher Ramesh Balsekar in Mumbai, Cohen returned to L.A. and to music. His albums "Ten New Songs" (2001) and "Dear Heather" (2004) were collaborations with producer-musician Sharon Robinson and his companion Anjani Thomas, respectively; he also produced the Anjani album "Blue Alert" (2006).

In 2005, Cohen discovered that his longtime manager and onetime lover Kelley Lynch had stolen $5 million from his accounts. Though he won a civil suit against Lynch, he was unable to recover the money. (Lynch was also found guilty of harassing Cohen and sentenced to 18 months in jail in 2012.)

In 2006, Cohen gave what amounted to his first public performance in more than a decade -- an impromptu appearance with Anjani Thomas during a signing of his new "Book of Longing" at a Toronto bookstore.

It set the stage for Cohen's 2008 world tour, which stretched to two years, featured dates at the Montreux and Glastonbury festivals and played to rapturous audiences. It also grossed an estimated $50 million and restored the musician to solvency. Nearing 80, Cohen had attained the greatest celebrity of a 50-year career in literature and music.

The top-10 arrival of the spare and drily witty "Old Ideas" in 2012 was succeeded by another series of concert dates in Europe and America that year and in 2013. "Popular Problems" was released in fall of 2014, shortly after Cohen's 80th birthday.

Cohen's many honors included his 2008 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a 2010 Lifetime Achievement Grammy.

He is survived by a son and daughter from his relationship with Suzanne Elrod.</s>Leonard Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of “Hallelujah,” “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire,” has died at age 82.

Cohen’s management said in a statement Thursday that he has passed away, and a memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. No further details on his death were given.

Cohen, also renowned as a poet, novelist and aspiring Zen monk, blended folk music with a darker, sexual edge that won him fans around the world and among fellow musicians like Bob Dylan and R.E.M.

He remained wildly popular into his 80s, touring as recently as earlier this year and releasing a new album just last month.

His “Hallelujah” became a cult hit when it was covered by musician Jeff Buckley in 1994, and has become a modern standard since.</s>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leonard Cohen, the baritone-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter who seamlessly blended spirituality and sexuality in songs like “Hallelujah,” ”Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire,” has died at age 82, his son said.

“My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles,” Adam Cohen said in a statement Thursday. “He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor.”

Cohen, also renowned as a poet, novelist and aspiring Zen monk, blended folk music with a darker, sexual edge that won him fans around the world and among fellow musicians like Bob Dylan and R.E.M.

He remained wildly popular into his 80s, when his deep voice plunged to seriously gravelly depths. He toured as recently as earlier this year and released a new album, “You Want it Darker,” just last month. Adam Cohen said his father died with the knowledge that he’d made one of his greatest records.

Cohen’s “Hallelujah” went from cult hit to modern standard, now an unending staple on movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, reality shows and high school choir concerts.

Cohen, who once said he got into music because he couldn’t make a living as a poet, rose to prominence during the folk music revival of the 1960s. During those years, he traveled the folk circuit with younger artists like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and others.

His contemporary Kris Kristofferson once said that he wanted the opening lines to Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire,” on his tombstone.

They would be a perfect epitaph for Cohen himself: “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.”

“Hamilton” star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda quoted those lines on Twitter Thursday night as one of many paying tribute to Cohen.

Mourners gathered and created a candle-lit shrine outside a home in Montreal, the city where Cohen was born.

Cohen never seemed quite as comfortable on stage as he did writing and recording, chalking it up to being a late starter among his folk cohort. “I was at least 10 years older than the rest of them,” he told Magazine, a supplement to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, in 2001.

Judy Collins, who had a hit with Cohen’s song “Suzanne,” once recalled he was so shy that he quit halfway through his first public performance of it and she had to coax him back onstage.

Like Dylan, his voice lacked polish but rang with emotion.

In 2016, Dylan told The New Yorker that Cohen’s best work was “deep and truthful, “multidimensional” and “surprisingly melodic.”

“When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius,” Dylan said. “Even the counterpoint lines — they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music.”

It was Dylan who first recognized the potential of 1984’s “Hallelujah, performing it twice in concert during the mid-1980s, once in Cohen’s native Canada.

It had gone unnoticed when it came out on an independent-label album that had been rejected by Cohen’s label. He had filled a notebook with some 80 verses before recording the song, which he said despite its religious references to David, Bathseba and Samson was an attempt to give a nonreligious context to hallelujah, an expression of praise.

Cohen recorded four verses, but he sent several more to John Cale, a founding Velvet Underground member who recorded “Hallelujah” for a 1991 tribute album.

It’s the Cale version that has become the standard and was used by its most celebrated singer, the late Jeff Buckley, whose 1994 recording really began the launch of the song as cultural phenomenon.

Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, telling the audience: “This is a very unlikely occasion for me. It is not a distinction that I coveted or even dared dream about.”

In songs such as “Sisters of Mercy,” Cohen melded romantic imagery with minimal orchestration to produce music that rang with the authenticity of traditional folk songs. Many had a dark mood, featuring black humor or sardonic social commentary.

“Destroy another fetus now, We don’t like children anyhow,” was one of the lines from his song “The Future.”

Once asked if he was a pessimist, he responded with typical dark humor.

“I don’t consider myself a pessimist at all,’ he told the London Daily Telegraph in 1993. “I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.”

Cohen suffered bouts of depression throughout his life that he sometimes tried to mitigate with alcohol and drugs.

When he gave his first U.S. concert in 15 years in early 2009, the 74-year-old received countless standing ovations from the sold-out crowd at New York’s Beacon Theatre.

“It’s been a long time since I stood up on this stage in New York City,” Cohen said. “I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I’ve taken a lot of Prozac.”

Born Sept. 21, 1934, he formed a country music group called the Buckskin Boys while still in his teens.

He was attending McGill University when his poetry book, “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” was published in 1956 to critical acclaim. It was followed by “The Spice-Box of Earth” in 1961. His first novel, “The Favourite Game,” came out in 1963.

He published several more poetry collections while living on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s and began to get wide notice with his experimental novel “Beautiful Losers” in 1966 and his first album, “Songs of Leonard Cohen,” in 1968.

“Leonard Cohen seems on the verge of becoming a major spokesman for the aging pilgrims of his generation,” The New York Times wrote in 1968. He told the Times interviewer: “I don’t even think of myself as a writer, singer or whatever. The occupation of being a man is so much more.”

In all, he published more than a dozen novels and books of poetry and recorded nearly two dozen albums.

Born to a Jewish family, Cohen considered himself both a Jew and a Buddhist.

For decades, Cohen was a student and friend of Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a Zen Buddhist monk, and from 1994 to 1999 he lived as a disciple of Roshi’s at the Mount Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles.

He claimed not to fully understand Buddhist concepts, but he said the retreat and its hard work gave him a better sense of himself.

“I was the cook up there,” he told Magazine. “My life was filled with great disorder, with chaos, and I achieved a little discipline there. So I decided to return to music.”

He continued to write and produce albums and books.

Cohen never married but he had two children, Adam and Lorca, with artist Suzanne Elrod.

He never won a Grammy, but he won countless other awards, including being named a companion of the Order of Canada in 1991, his native country’s highest civilian honor.

“No other artist’s music felt or sounded like Leonard Cohen’s,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement Thursday. “Yet his work resonated across generations. Canada and the world will miss him.”

One of Cohen’s most beloved hits was 1967’s “So Long Marianne,” written for former girlfriend and longtime friend Marianne Ihlen, who also inspired his song “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.”

In late July of this year, Cohen received an email from a friend of Ihlen’s that she was suffering from cancer, the New Yorker reported last month. Cohen wrote her a letter that read:

“Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and 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.”

Ihlen received the letter two days before her death.

Associated Press music writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report from New York.

CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT - FILE - In this April 17, 2009, file photo, Leonard Cohen performs during the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” "Suzanne” and "Bird on a Wire," has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File) CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT - FILE - In this April 17, 2009, file photo, Leonard Cohen performs during the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” "Suzanne” and "Bird on a Wire," has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File) CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT - FILE - In this April 17, 2009, file photo, Leonard Cohen salutes the crowd during his performance on the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” "Suzanne” and "Bird on a Wire," has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT - FILE - In this April 17, 2009, file photo, Leonard Cohen salutes the crowd during his performance on the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” "Suzanne” and "Bird on a Wire," has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT- FILE - In this March 10. 2008, file photo, musician Leonard Cohen poses backstage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony after he was inducted in New York. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” "Suzanne” and "Bird on a Wire," has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File) CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT- FILE - In this March 10. 2008, file photo, musician Leonard Cohen poses backstage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony after he was inducted in New York. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” "Suzanne” and "Bird on a Wire," has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File) CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT - FILE - In this April 17, 2009, file photo, Leonard Cohen performs during the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire,” has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82. CORRECTS DATE OF STATEMENT - FILE - In this April 17, 2009, file photo, Leonard Cohen performs during the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Cohen, the gravelly-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter of hits like “Hallelujah,” “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire,” has died, his management said in a statement Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. He was 82.</s>LOS ANGELES — Leonard Cohen, the baritone-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter who seamlessly blended spirituality and sexuality in songs like "Hallelujah," ''Suzanne" and "Bird on a Wire," has died at age 82, his son said Thursday.

"My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles," Adam Cohen said in a statement. "He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor."

Cohen, also renowned as a poet, novelist and aspiring Zen monk, blended folk music with a darker, sexual edge that won him fans around the world and among fellow musicians like Bob Dylan and R.E.M.

He remained wildly popular into his 80s, when his deep voice plunged to seriously gravelly depths. He toured as recently as earlier this year and released a new album, "You Want it Darker," just last month. Adam Cohen said his father died with the knowledge that he'd made one of his greatest records.

Cohen's "Hallelujah" went from cult hit to modern standard, now an unending staple on movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, reality shows and high school choir concerts.

Cohen, who once said he got into music because he couldn't make a living as a poet, rose to prominence during the folk music revival of the 1960s. During those years, he traveled the folk circuit with younger artists like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and others.

His contemporary Kris Kristofferson once said that he wanted the opening lines to Cohen's "Bird on a Wire," on his tombstone.

They would be a perfect epitaph for Cohen himself: "Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free."

"Hamilton" star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda quoted those lines on Twitter Thursday night as one of many paying tribute to Cohen.

Mourners gathered and created a candle-lit shrine outside a home in Montreal, the city where Cohen was born.

Cohen never seemed quite as comfortable on stage as he did writing and recording, chalking it up to being a late starter among his folk cohort. "I was at least 10 years older than the rest of them," he told Magazine, a supplement to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, in 2001.

Judy Collins, who had a hit with Cohen's song "Suzanne," once recalled he was so shy that he quit halfway through his first public performance of it and she had to coax him back onstage.

Like Dylan, his voice lacked polish but rang with emotion.

In 2016, Dylan told The New Yorker that Cohen's best work was "deep and truthful, "multidimensional" and "surprisingly melodic."

"When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius," Dylan said. "Even the counterpoint lines — they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music."

It was Dylan who first recognized the potential of 1984's "Hallelujah, performing it twice in concert during the mid-1980s, once in Cohen's native Canada.

It had gone unnoticed when it came out on an independent-label album that had been rejected by Cohen's label. He had filled a notebook with some 80 verses before recording the song, which he said despite its religious references to David, Bathseba and Samson was an attempt to give a nonreligious context to hallelujah, an expression of praise.

Cohen recorded four verses, but he sent several more to John Cale, a founding Velvet Underground member who recorded "Hallelujah" for a 1991 tribute album.

It's the Cale version that has become the standard and was used by its most celebrated singer, the late Jeff Buckley, whose 1994 recording really began the launch of the song as cultural phenomenon.

Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, telling the audience: "This is a very unlikely occasion for me. It is not a distinction that I coveted or even dared dream about."

In songs such as "Sisters of Mercy," Cohen melded romantic imagery with minimal orchestration to produce music that rang with the authenticity of traditional folk songs. Many had a dark mood, featuring black humor or sardonic social commentary.

"Destroy another fetus now, We don't like children anyhow," was one of the lines from his song "The Future."

Once asked if he was a pessimist, he responded with typical dark humor.

"I don't consider myself a pessimist at all,' he told the London Daily Telegraph in 1993. "I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin."

Cohen suffered bouts of depression throughout his life that he sometimes tried to mitigate with alcohol and drugs.

When he gave his first U.S. concert in 15 years in early 2009, the 74-year-old received countless standing ovations from the sold-out crowd at New York's Beacon Theatre.

"It's been a long time since I stood up on this stage in New York City," Cohen said. "I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac."

Born Sept. 21, 1934, he formed a country music group called the Buckskin Boys while still in his teens.

He was attending McGill University when his poetry book, "Let Us Compare Mythologies," was published in 1956 to critical acclaim. It was followed by "The Spice-Box of Earth" in 1961. His first novel, "The Favourite Game," came out in 1963.

He published several more poetry collections while living on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s and began to get wide notice with his experimental novel "Beautiful Losers" in 1966 and his first album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," in 1968.

"Leonard Cohen seems on the verge of becoming a major spokesman for the aging pilgrims of his generation," The New York Times wrote in 1968. He told the Times interviewer: "I don't even think of myself as a writer, singer or whatever. The occupation of being a man is so much more."

In all, he published more than a dozen novels and books of poetry and recorded nearly two dozen albums.

Born to a Jewish family, Cohen considered himself both a Jew and a Buddhist.

For decades, Cohen was a student and friend of Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a Zen Buddhist monk, and from 1994 to 1999 he lived as a disciple of Roshi's at the Mount Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles.

He claimed not to fully understand Buddhist concepts, but he said the retreat and its hard work gave him a better sense of himself.

"I was the cook up there," he told Magazine. "My life was filled with great disorder, with chaos, and I achieved a little discipline there. So I decided to return to music."

He continued to write and produce albums and books.

Cohen never married but he had two children, Adam and Lorca, with artist Suzanne Elrod.

He never won a Grammy, but he won countless other awards, including being named a companion of the Order of Canada in 1991, his native country's highest civilian honor.

"No other artist's music felt or sounded like Leonard Cohen's," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement Thursday. "Yet his work resonated across generations. Canada and the world will miss him."

One of Cohen's most beloved hits was 1967's "So Long Marianne," written for former girlfriend and longtime friend Marianne Ihlen, who also inspired his song "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye."

In late July of this year, Cohen received an email from a friend of Ihlen's that she was suffering from cancer, the New Yorker reported last month. Cohen wrote her a letter that read:

"Well Marianne, it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and 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."

Ihlen received the letter two days before her death.
Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen dies at the age of 82.