Hear Leonard Cohen’s First Posthumous Song ‘The Goal’

Columbia/Legacy has released the first posthumous song from late singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, “The Goal.” The short, acoustic track, which clocks in at a little over a minute long, is an intimate song that feels more like a spoken word poem. The song previews a posthumous album of the musician’s work titled Thanks for the Dance, which will be released November 22nd.

“I can’t leave my house,” Cohen intones on the moody track, which features piano and acoustic guitar. “Or answer the phone/ I’m going down again/ But I’m not alone.”

“In composing and arranging the music for his words, we chose his most characteristic musical signatures, in this way keeping him with us,” Leonard’s son Adam Cohen said in a statement. “What moves me most about the album is the startled response of those who have heard it. ‘Leonard lives’! they say, one after the other.”

Thanks for the Dance, available to preorder now, also features musical contributions from Beck, Damien Rice, Feist, the National’s Bryce Dessner, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, Daniel Lanois and more.

Cohen died at 82 on November 11, 2016, a few months after releasing his final album, You Want it Darker. In 2018, Adam Cohen, who produced You Want it Darker, confirmed a posthumous album from Cohen was in the works for release in 2019. In an interview with CBC’s q, he said, “I was tasked with finishing a few more songs of his that we started together on the last album, so his voice is literally still in my life. It’s a bizarre and delicious entanglement.”

He added, “To make a long story short, I believe that there are some really beautiful new songs of Leonard Cohen that no one’s heard that are at some point going to come out… There are these songs that exist that he wanted finished, these incredible powerful readings that were set to music. It’s going to surprise and delight.”

Thanks For the Dance Track List

1. Happens to the Heart
2. Moving On
3. The Night of Santiago
4. Thanks for the Dance
5. It’s Torn
6. The Goal
7. Puppets
8. The Hills
9. Listen to the Hummingbird