Leonard Cohen Announces Haunting New Album ‘You Want It Darker’
Leonard Cohen has announced that his new LP, You Want It Darker, is arriving this fall. The album, featuring nine new songs, is Cohen’s first studio LP since 2014’s Popular Problems.
Sony Music, Cohen’s label for five decades, calls You Want It Darker a collection of “haunting new songs,” with the “lucky few” who have heard the album deeming it “a masterpiece” and “classic Cohen.” Leonard’s son Adam Cohen produced the album, Cohen’s 14th studio LP. In June, a portion of the album’s title track debuted in the show Peaky Blinders.
The 82-year-old singer has not yet revealed the album’s official release date. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s last release was 2015’s Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour, a compilation of songs from Cohen’s (potentially final) tour in 2012 and 2013 which included two new compositions, “Never Gave Nobody Trouble” and “Got a Little Secret.”
Earlier this month, friends of Marianne Ihlen, the woman who inspired Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” and “So Long, Marianne,” revealed that Cohen penned Ihlen a moving letter just days before she died of leukemia on July 29th. “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,” the poet wrote. “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.”
Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker Track List
1. “You Want It Darker”
2. “Treaty”
3. “On the Level”
4. “Leaving the Table”
5. “If I Didn’t Have Your Love”
6. “Traveling Light”
7. “It Seemed the Better Way”
8. “Steer Your Way”
9. “String Reprise/Treaty”