A host of famous musicians have been summoned together to create a posthumous Leonard Cohen album, entitled Thanks For The Dance.
The record will be out on November 22 via Sony Music Entertainment, but you can now listen to a track titled The Goal – adapted from a Cohen poem of the same name.
The first track off the upcoming posthumous Leonard Cohen album has been released, produced by his son, and featuring previously unheard song sketches.
The driving force behind the project is Cohen’s son, Adam Cohen, who produced the album. He also produced some of his father’s last record You Want It Darker, released in 2016, the title track earning Leonard Cohen his first solo Grammy award. Before his death, Cohen had asked Adam to complete some of the unfinished song sketches left over from their collaboration.
To make the record, Adam Cohen enlisted the likes of Damien Rice and Feist on vocals, Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire on bass, Bryce Dressner from The National on guitar, Dustin O’Halloran on piano, and original bandmate Javier Mas playing Cohen’s very own guitar.
Other people featured on the album include Beck on guitar and harp, Daniel Lanois, Jennifer Warnest, the s t a r g a z e orchestra, and more.
“In composing and arranging the music for his words, we chose his most characteristic musical signatures, in this way keeping him with us,” Adam Cohen described of the project.
“What moves me most about the album is the startled response of those who have heard it. ‘Leonard lives!’ they say, one after the other.”
In The Goal, Leonard Cohen can be heard reciting the poem over a delicate musical accompaniment of piano and acoustic guitar. Similar to You Want It Darker, The Goal presents an exploration of themes of mortality, his poetry as poignant as ever.
“Settling at last / Accounts of the soul / This for the trash / That paid in full.”
The Flame, a book of Leonard Cohen’s final poetry and lyrics, was also published by Adam Cohen in October last year.
You can listen to The Goal below.
