In August, Leonard Cohen wrote to his dying muse Marianne Ihlen: “I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.” Last week, at 82, he followed her into a place beyond death. His music, and his myth, will long survive his passing. Cohen’s latest album You Want It Darker – his best for years – focuses partly on his readiness for death. The title track begins: If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame The song ends simply: “Hineni, hineni [Here I am] / I’m ready, my Lord.” The background singing is from the choir of the Montreal synagogue where he grew up; he came from a family of Jewish scholars. The words of the chorus, “Magnified and sanctified / Be thy Holy Name”, are from the Kaddish, the prayer for mourners. Cohen is the closest of all modern poets and songwriters to the medieval troubadours, in that he writes about sex and spirituality – two of the strongest urges we know – in the same song, sometimes in the same lines. His encounters not just with muses Marianne and Suzanne Verdal, but also with many of the great female singers of the 20th century, including Joni Mitchell, Nico and Janis Joplin, are well known. So is his deep spiritual quest. His Jewish heritage is clear in Story of Isaac, Who by Fire, his version of the Yom Kippur prayer, and his most covered song, Hallelujah. In one of his most haunting songs, If It Be Your Will, he offers his voice, and its silencing, to God. One song on the new album seems to echo this, ending: I better hold my tongue I better take my place Lift this glass of blood Try to say the grace. As Cohen grew older and his voice (unbelievably) even deeper, his thoughts became deeper too. You Want It Darker is a meditation on life and love and loss and leaving and death. And it’s beautiful.