Rumours of Leonard Cohen’s upcoming demise have been greatly exaggerated, according to the man himself.
Speaking at the launch party for his upcoming album, You Want It Darker, Cohen addressed his recent comment in a lengthy New Yorker profile that he is “ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me,” he told the magazine.
“I said I was ready to die recently,” he said during the early part of the release party's onstage Q&A. “I think I was exaggerating. One is given to self-dramatization from time to time. I intend to live forever.”
You Want it Darker by Leonard Cohen
Elsewhere in the interview, conducted by KCRW DJ Chris Douridas and held in Los Angeles, Cohen addressed his religious beliefs, the creation of the new album and his friend Bob Dylan’s recent Nobel Prize win, saying "I will comment on his receiving the Nobel Prize, which to me is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain,"
Cohen ended the Q&A by citing the Jewish blessing that one would live to the age Moses died. “I hope we can do this again," he said. “I intend to stick around until I’m 120.”
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