Leonard Cohen

Roe cares about fewer residents of the Tower of Song than I do. I'm not sure how she formed her affection for the work of Leonard Cohen, but I'm glad she did, not least because she took me to see him four or five years ago, a mesmerizing Boston show near the end of his last major tour. It seems entirely appropriate that he died in the fall, the season that finds the beauty in death and decay. His brilliant lyrics tackled mortality and other essential facts of existence that artists with less zen about them address only superficially if at all. His gravelly voice and measured tempos match the gravity of the subject matter, which is one reason why I seldom listened to him before Roe fell for him. I still take him in small doses or at carefully chosen times; he's not the guy you put on to drive your dog to the beach or to get motivated for that morning commute. But he found the beauty in all of it, too. I was thinking about him when I looked up and saw this on the day after he died.