Tower of Song

Ira Nadel wrote that Cohen wanted to make a definitive statement about the heroic enterprise of the craft of songwriting. In the early 1980s he called the work Raise My Voice in Song and abandoned it, then finished the lyrics one night in Montreal and recorded it in one take on a toy synthesizer. The song mentions Hank Williams, whom Cohen admired, and audiences reacted when he sang the line about being born with a golden voice. Cohen recited the lyrics in full when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It ranked number 8 in a 2014 Rolling Stone readers poll of his songs.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Robert Forster covered it on I'm Your Fan, Martha Wainwright and U2 in the film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, and Tom Jones opened his album Spirit in the Room with it. At the Tower of Song memorial concert in 2017 it was sung by Willie Nelson, Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel, Chris Martin and the Shaar Hashomayim Choir.