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Thanks for the Dance

The posthumous final album, finished by Adam Cohen from sketches left from the You Want It Darker sessions.
Leonard Cohen, 2019

Released
22 November 2019
Label
Columbia and Legacy
Producer
Adam Cohen

Thanks for the Dance is Cohen's fifteenth and final studio album, released on 22 November 2019 through Columbia and Legacy. Its vocals were recorded in the same sessions as You Want It Darker, and Adam Cohen finished the songs in a garage near his father's old house, with contributions from Daniel Lanois, Beck, Jennifer Warnes, Damien Rice and Leslie Feist. Adam said it should not be seen as an album of discarded songs or B sides.

The Night of Santiago sets Lorca's poem The Unfaithful Housewife, and Listen to the Hummingbird grew from a recitation Cohen gave at his last public appearance, on 13 October 2016. The Goal is a 1998 poem from Book of Longing, and Thanks for the Dance had first been recorded by Anjani on Blue Alert. Metacritic scored the album 84, and Rolling Stone called it a magnificent parting shot. Pitchfork's Ben Hewitt wrote that Beck plays Jew's harp on The Night of Santiago and that Javier Mas plays the Spanish laud on the title track.

Track listing

  1. Happens to the Heart4:33
  2. Moving On3:11
  3. The Night of Santiago4:15
  4. Thanks for the Dance4:13
  5. It's Torn2:57
  6. The Goal1:12
  7. Puppets2:39
  8. The Hills4:17
  9. Listen to the Hummingbird2:01

Personnel

More from Leonard Cohen

Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971), Live Songs (1973), New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974), Death of a Ladies' Man (1977), Recent Songs (1979), Various Positions (1984), I'm Your Man (1988), The Future (1992), Ten New Songs (2001), Dear Heather (2004), Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems (2014), You Want It Darker (2016)

Sources

  1. Thanks for the Dance, Wikipedia
  2. Thanks for the Dance (master release), Discogs
  3. Leonard Cohen: Thanks for the Dance, Pitchfork (2019-11-21)