“In states of pain and discomfort, what do you seek with more energy and more clarity than joy and jubilance?”

Hallelujah.

Leonard Cohen’s son is releasing, Thanks for the Dance, on Friday, a posthumous collection of songs and collaborations left over from his father’s final album, You Want It Darker.

Adam Cohen was able to recruit many of the musicians his father worked with through the years to dive deeper into the legendary musician’s catalogue and flesh out work he was unable to finish before his death in 2016.

“There’s that Jewish tradition of bringing a tiny rock or stone to a gravesite,” Adam Cohen told The New York Times. “I felt like every person was there to just humbly deposit their little rock near the engraving of his name.”

Leonard Cohen made no secret of the pain he was struggling with from leukemia and compression fractures in his spine in the months leading up to his death. Adam Cohen spoke fondly of those difficult days, telling CBC that they still managed to have fun, courtesy of his father’s medication.

“This old man, who was truly in pain and discomfort, would at some intervals get out of his medical chair and dance in front of his speakers,” he said. “And sometimes, we would put on a song and listen to it on repeat just like teenagers with the help of medical marijuana,” he said.

“I think in states of pain and discomfort, what do you seek with more energy and more clarity than joy and jubilance?” he added.

Clarity also came in the form of profound discussions with his dad before his death, where Leonard Cohen made it clear he wanted his son to finish his work, he said. “The conversations were about what instrumentation and what feelings he wanted the completed work to evoke. Sadly, the fact that I would be completing them without him was given.”

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