News
LEONARD COHEN’S CAREER-SPANNING ANTHOLOGY ALBUM HALLELUJAH & SONGS FROM HIS ALBUMS, OUT TODAY
WITH UNRELEASED 2008 LIVE AT GLASTONBURY VERSION OF “HALLELUJAH”
ALBUM INSPIRED BY NEW DOCUMENTARY
HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN A JOURNEY, A SONG
Today, Sony Music Entertainment releases first-ever career-spanning album from songwriter, musician, poet, novelist, and visual artist Leonard Cohen. Comprised of 17 tracks from Cohen’s expansive career, the anthology, Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah & Songs from His Albums, features an unreleased and unforgettable live performance of “Hallelujah” from the 2008 Glastonbury Festival. See full track list below. The album is available digitally now – listen here, and coming this fall on CD and limited-edition translucent blue vinyl (2LP) – click here to pre-order.
This collection is a companion piece to the new documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, which premieres at Tribeca Festival this month, and was also an official selection at 2021 Venice Film Festival and 2021 Telluride Festival. The film is a definitive exploration of the singer-songwriter as seen through the prism of Cohen’s internationally renowned hymn “Hallelujah.” Approved for production by Leonard Cohen just before his 80th birthday in 2014, the film accesses a wealth of never-before-seen archival materials from the Cohen Family Trust, including Cohen’s personal notebooks, journals and photographs, performance footage, and extremely rare audio recordings and interviews. The feature-length documentary contains moving testimonies from personal friends of Leonard’s such as Adrienne Clarkson and Larry “Ratso” Sloman, and recording artists for whom “Hallelujah” has become a personal touchstone like Judy Collins, Brandi Carlile, and Rufus Wainwright.
Track List
Hallelujah (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
Suzanne
Bird on the Wire
Famous Blue Raincoat
Chelsea Hotel #2
Who by Fire
Dance Me to the End of Love
I’m Your Man
Anthem
The Future
In My Secret Life
Recitation w/ N.L. (A Thousand Kisses Deep)
Show Me the Place
Come Healing
You Got Me Singing
You Want It Darker
Thanks for the Dance
NEW VIDEO FOR LEONARD COHEN SONG “PUPPETS” RELEASED TODAY
VIDEO MARKS FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF LEONARD COHEN’S PASSING
“Puppets,” the final video from the posthumous album Thanks for the Dance is released today, commemorating the fifth anniversary of Cohen’s passing (November 7th, 2016). The video marks the return of director Daniel Askill, who also created the “Happens to the Heart” video. Daniel worked closely with Leonard’s son, Adam Cohen, on this closing cinematic vision, the last of five videos created for the album. Watch “Puppets” here.
Shot in black and white, the emotive visual features artist and actor Bobbi Salvör Menuez, also in “Happens to the Heart,” exploring Cohen’s powerful lyrical themes of evil and control. Askill is known for his artistic creations using film, photographs, video installation, and sculpture, and has directed films, commercials, fashion films, and music videos (Sia, Paul McCartney, and Lady Gaga).
“It has been such a gift to have the opportunity to create these visual responses to the music of Leonard Cohen. Cohen has an incredible ability to create a bridge between the sublime and the prosaic — the metaphysical and political. In ‘Puppets,’ he does that while addressing dark themes with a poetic insight,” said Daniel Askill of the project. “This video for Puppets has been born out of a wonderful ongoing dialogue with Adam Cohen. It is in some ways a darker counter point to the first film we made for ‘Happens to the Heart.’ Shot on location in New York, this film follows the symbolic journey of a single figure through darkness towards a transcendence. In many ways, it is visually pointing to the idea that Leonard often beautifully evokes in different ways — that the darkness and the light of our experience is deeply entangled — and maybe at a fundamental level they are in fact one and the same.”
Released in 2019, Thanks For The Dance was an unexpected harvest of new songs from the master Leonard Cohen. Collaborating with producer (and son) Adam Cohen, friends and colleagues gathered to support and complete the work Leonard had begun, making an album that echoes the sounds of his catalogue, while remaining fresh, current, and resonant.
