Leonard Cohen: 10 of his best songs

'You Want It Darker'

"I am ready Lord". Thus spoke Cohen in the chorus of the first song of his last ever album, released less than a month ago. The haunting textures of You Want It Darker gave you the feeling that Cohen was already in communion with the afterlife. In his final moments, he gave us some of the best music he's ever made.

'First We Take Manhattan'

Leonard Cohen's pseudo-synth re-imagining of a song he'd originally written for Jennifer Warnes is a glorious, intense, paranoiac reflection on fear and terrorism with a distinctively '80s sound. Backing vocals courtesy of singer Anjani, this is one of the best songs on 1988's I'm Your Man album.

'Anthem'

"There's a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in." Surely one of the finest lines of poetry every put to song. 'Anthem' comes from Cohen's 1992 album The Future.

'The Future'

Coming from the same album, 'The Future' mixes gritty vocals with grittier themes as Cohen expounds on socio-political issues in the '90s. "I've seen the future, it is murder" Cohen tells us. "Things are gonna slide, slide in all directions." He wasn't wrong. Repent. Repent.

'Dance Me to the End of Love'

The song that has opened almost every Cohen concert since the late '80s, 'Dance Me to the End of Love' has become a standard and a classic, covered by dozens of artists since its inception. Sounding like a quintessential love song, Cohen admission that the song was inspired by the Holocaust gives the lyrics startling weight ("Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin"). It's the type of juxtaposition between death and love that only Cohen could perfect.

'Famous Blue Raincoat'

Cohen's epistolary account of a love triangle is a moving and tragic story. Cohen's question 'Did You Ever Go Clear?', addressed to his lover, is a reference to the Scientology idea of 'Clear' (a little known fact is that for a brief time Cohen was a member of the Church of Scientology). 'Famous Blue Raincoat' comes from Cohen's third album Songs of Love and Hate.

'Bird on the Wire'

One of the saddest live versions of a tremendous ode to freedom and forgiveness. This song is Cohen at his most confessional and honest. Perhaps most poignantly, Cohen said that he would put the lyrics 'Like a bird on the wire, /Like a drunk in some old midnight choir /I have tried in my way to be free' on his headstone.

'Hallelujah'

Made more famous by the likes of Jeff Buckley, it's worth including Cohen's original version as a testament to just how much of an inspiration he was to other artists. Written like a gospel song, 'Hallelujah' plummets into Old Testament stories and arrives at something which can only be described as a modern-day hymn.

'So Long Marianne'

A rousing, come-all-ye folk ballad, 'So Long Marianne' is a magnificent tribute to Marianne Ihlen, Cohen's ex-girlfriend from the '60s. If there is a heaven, the two will be laughing, crying, and laughing about it all again.

'Suzanne'

The first song from the first Leonard Cohen album. "It would be wrong to get rich off this song," Cohen says in this live version, referencing the legal wranglings which denied him of the song's royalties. Monetarily the song might not have made Cohen wealthy, but this is a poem rich in harmony and lyrical depth. 40 years after it was first released, the harmonies sound as sweet as ever.