The brilliance of Cohen is evident in this comment. Cohen always resisted being definitive and/or absolute.

I thank you heartily for this gorgeous piece. The way you started out with Mozart's Requiem and then bring it around to Cohen's final album was well worth the read.

I'm a Leonard fan, big-time. Have read/listened to many of his works, interviews, books.

I mulled over the lyric "You want it darker, We kill the flame" for quite a while upon the album's release. Much of Leonard's work dealt with the will. The will of God, the will of a man or woman. I believe what he was saying was a gesture of submission to God's will, for what is birth or death but the will of God? (or the Creator, or Allah, or whomever you designate.)

So glad to see Leonard's work studied and shared here. Really fine job, imho.