![]() ![]() Such is the aura of sacredness that attaches to the High Priest of Pathos that dissident views are treated as heresy. ![]() lang, and currently in contention for the most overperformed song in history-and you’ve got yourself a prophet. The haunting title track, featuring backing vocals by the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Choir, makes you feel like Cohen is in direct communion with God as he proclaims, in the Biblical tongue of his ancestors, “Hineni, hineni/ I’m ready, my Lord.” Add to this the massive success of “Hallelujah”-ignored when first released in the eighties, resurrected by Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, and k.d. The posthumous hagiography attests to the power of Cohen’s religious imagery, which arguably reached its peak in his final album, You Want It Darker. ![]() ![]() The former enfant terrible of Canadian arts and letters-erstwhile refuser of Governor General’s awards, ingestor of drugs on Greek islands, recipient of head on unmade beds-has transmogrified, through death, into a holy figure. The description is not hyperbole or metaphor but an accurate assessment of Cohen’s immaculate status in the current zeitgeist. ![]()
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