This is a special podcast episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

Like a burn on the wire, like a drunken night choir,

I have tried in my way to be free.

At the end of the summer, I went to spend a couple of days with the great songwriter, Leonard Cohen.

I knew that Cohen was very, very sick, and he had made it clear he wasn't going to be with us for very much longer.

He'd been avoiding interviews for the past four, five, six years, but once he had made it clear he wasn't going to be with us for very much longer. He'd been avoiding interviews for the past four or five, six years,

but once he agreed to talk to me, we talked for days,

and I'm especially grateful that I had the chance to visit when I did,

because this week we heard that Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82.

Cohen once wrote a song called The Tower of Song, in which he compared himself really

unfavorably to Hank Williams, but along with other great masters, Bob Dylan, certainly,

Johnny Mitchell, Kanye West, everybody's got their own list. Leonard Cohen is way up there

in the ranks of American song and songwriters.

When I visited him in Los Angeles, he was suffering from cancer, although he was keeping

that very private. He was in deep pain from compression fractures in his spine, and he had to

sit in a big blue medical chair to ease that pain. He was very thin already, maybe 105, 110 pounds. But I've got to say

that he was in a bullion mood for a man who knew where life was taking him. He knew exactly where he was

going and he was headed there in a hurry. And at the same time, he was incredibly gracious, the most

gracious host, this side of my mother.

Would you like a few slices of cheese and olives?

No, I'm good, thank you. You're cool.

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