"Thanks for the Dance" is the fifteenth and final studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released posthumously on November 22, 2019, through Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. This album marks Cohen's first release after his death in November 2016 and features contributions from various musicians, including Daniel Lanois, Beck, Jennifer Warnes, Damien Rice, and Leslie Feist. The song "The Goal" was released ahead of the album's official announcement on September 20, 2019.
The album is described as a continuation of Cohen's 2016 album You Want It Darker. The vocal tracks were recorded during the same sessions, and Cohen's son, Adam Cohen, who also produced the album, emphasized that it should not be seen as a collection of discarded songs or B-sides, but rather as a proper follow-up to You Want It Darker.
The songs on Thanks for the Dance are unfinished sketches that Leonard Cohen had worked on during the sessions for You Want It Darker, which were then completed by Adam Cohen. These sessions took place in a garage near Cohen's old house. Adam Cohen explained that the tracks were songs his father had intended to finish, but they were left incomplete due to his declining health. Adam further reflected that, if Cohen had had more time and been in better health, these songs would have been completed together.
The title track, "Thanks for the Dance," was originally recorded by Anjani for her 2007 album Blue Alert, an album produced and written by Leonard Cohen. Cohen later recorded his own version of the song for this album.
Several songs on Thanks for the Dance had been years in the making. "The Night of Santiago" is an adaptation of a poem by Federico García Lorca titled "The Unfaithful Housewife." This piece had been in development for years, and Leonard Cohen had previously shared parts of it with his son. Adam Cohen set the music to it, recalling how he had often encouraged his father to put music to the poem, especially after hearing Cohen recite it.
The album also features the only original composition by Leonard Cohen on the album, "The Hills," which had been broadcast as a demo titled "The Book of Longing" during a 2006 interview with Cohen at KCRW. This song was inspired by the opening poem from his Book of Longing, and Adam Cohen set it to music based on his father’s original ideas.
Some tracks were created around Leonard Cohen's recitations, including "Listen to the Hummingbird," which was built around a recitation Cohen made during his final public appearance in October 2016 to promote You Want It Darker. This poem was later published in Cohen's posthumous book The Flame, alongside other poems like "Moving On" and "Happens to the Heart."
"The Goal," another track on the album, is a 1998 poem originally published in Book of Longing. It had been set to music by Anjani and released on her 2014 album I Came to Love, but here, it is presented with Cohen’s recitation set to music by Adam Cohen.
The track "It's Torn" is a reworking of a song that Cohen originally collaborated on with Sharon Robinson. In this version, the song was produced and further composed by Adam Cohen and features guitar effects by Daniel Lanois, who would later release his own version of the track in 2021, titled "Torn Again," using Leonard Cohen's original voice recording.
Overall, Thanks for the Dance stands as a poignant final chapter in Leonard Cohen’s prolific career, with his son Adam helping to complete his father’s musical legacy.
