It was a shit year for our musical gods. Seriously. It almost couldn’t have gotten worse (hey 2017 that is not an invitation, its time to slow down!) when we lost Boulez and Bowie, but we thought the year was bad enough, but then we lost Prince and Rautavaara, and the rout (see what I did there?) was on. We even lost Merle Haggard, and he was tough as nails, a human grizzly bear. I’ve seen sidewalks that looked healthier than him and he just kept on going.
It was a shit year. We lost Sharon Jones, Leon Russell, and Keith Emerson. Hell, we even lost someone from Mott the Hoople. Just a dirty, dirty Donald Trump won the presidency kind of year.
So in an effort to commemorate a few of these legends before this year (which can go straight to hell) lurches to its own untimely death, may I present Leonard Cohen to you? Here are what I think are his 12 best songs. If you disagree with my choices – let me know. Yes – Hallelujah is not on my list. Its a great song, but not a top 12 song in the Leonard Cohen songbook.
Why are there 12 songs? I challenge you to eliminate any one of these songs from your top 10 list. Just go ahead and try. Each one is a sculpted gem as close to perfect as you can get.
And it is so hard to get down to 10 songs. I could just choose either the I’m your man, or The Future albums. But it feels like that ignores the early and late work that were so fantastic in their own ways. Especially Ten New Songs, which was such an amazing offering.
So here is the playlist. Let me know what you think.
John Wiens, Conductor 
Great playlist! I would have to add Alexandra Leaving: exquisite poetry, slow drawn out melody, a piece of perfection.
I agree completely!