Patrick Comerford
I stayed up late on Tuesday night, into the early hours of Wednesday, hoping that as the hours progressed American democracy would progress too, hoping that for the rest of the week I could find myself singing, over and over again, the Leonard Cohen song, ‘Democracy is Coming to the USA’.
It seems fitting this week, given Donald Trump’s recent assaults on Canadian democracy, that this biting criticism in song of the US political system should come from Canada’s leading poet and songwriter of the 20th century, Leonard Cohen, who died ten years ago tomorrow, on 7 November 2016.
I still remember well that day, as I was visiting the former concentration camps in Auschwitz and Birkenau on the day. On the following night, I stayed up late once again into the early hours, in an hotel room in Kraków, as the horrifying news poured in of Trump’s first election win:
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
Although he was Canadian, Leonard Cohen spent most of his life in the US, ‘the cradle of the best and of the worst.’ His song, ‘Democracy is Coming to the USA’, was one of spiritual thirst with subliminal Biblical imagery that includes the flood, the covenant on Mount Sinai, crossing the river into the Promised Land, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Messianic age.
It is a song that combines cynicism and hope, a cynical reminder that America is not the democracy it claims to be, that racism and class discrimination, exploitation and oppression have not been abolished, but that while that time is not here yet, it is coming in its own time.
It’s coming through a hole in the air
From those nights in Tiananmen Square
It’s coming from the feel
That this ain’t exactly real
Or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there
From the war against disorder
From the sirens night and day
From the fires of the homeless
From the ashes of the gay
Democracy is coming to the USA
It’s coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
From the staggering account
Of the Sermon on the Mount
Which I don’t pretend to understand at all
It’s coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered Heart of Chevrolet
Democracy is coming to the USA
It’s coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin’
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
Democracy is coming to the USA
Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state
To the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
Through the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
It’s coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the USA
It’s coming from the women and the men
Oh baby, we’ll be making love again
We’ll be going down so deep
The river’s going to weep
And the mountain’s going to shout, ‘Amen’
It’s coming like the tidal flood
Beneath the lunar sway
Imperial, mysterious
In amorous array
Democracy is coming to the USA
Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state
To the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
Through the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the USA
To the USA.
The Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) has been described as the psalmist of the 20th and 21st centuries. In his work, he explored themes of faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, social and political conflict, sexual and romantic love, desire, regret, and loss, and what it means to be a creature of flesh made in love by spiritual hands.
In a special feature in the Church Times today (6 November 2026) to mark the tenth anniversary of Cohen’s death, the Anglican priest, writer and theologian Canon Rod Garner, looks at the spiritual influences that iinformed and provide the setting and context for Cohen’s poetry and song-writing.
A number of events have been organised or are taking this week and this weekend to mark this tenth anniversary. Leonard Cohen’s songs are returning to the stage in ‘Everybody Knows’, sung by his son Adam Cohen, and the first official, family-produced tribute tour since the 2017. A decade after his death, Leonard Cohen’s family has organised the First Official Tribute Tour, with concerts in the Grand Théâtre de Québec (Monday 2 November), Théâtre Saint-Denis, Montréal (Thursday 4 November) and the Meridian Hall, Toronto, tomorrow (7 November). The tour will continue across Europe early next year (2027), and the venues announced earlier this week (3 November) are: Dublin, 29 January; London, 1 February; Manchester, 2 February; Amsterdam, 5 February; Paris, 6 February; Antwerp, 7 February; Berlin, 9 February; Copenhagen 11 February; and Stockholm, 13 February. Tickets went on sale today (Friday 6 November).
‘Everybody Knows’ is the first official, family-produced tribute tour since the 2017 memorial celebration at Montreal’s Bell Centre, where Lana Del Rey, Feist, Damien Rice, Courtney Love and the Lumineers honoured him. This initiative by Adam Cohen and celebrates Leonard Cohen’s legacy with performances of his best-known songs, accompanied by carefully curated selections of archival photographs and film footage. Adam Cohen is sharing the stage with his own son, Leonard Cohen’s grandson, bringing a personal and multigenerational dimension to the celebration.
‘My father was grateful to his audience for keeping his songs alive,’ Adam Cohen said. ‘That’s what we intend to do, and I never imagined I’d be doing it standing beside my son. I doubt my father did either.’
Meanwhille, in Ireland, Leonard Cohen’s long-time friend John MacKenna and actor Shane Sullivan are presenting ‘Absent Friend’, two evenings of music and words in Ballintubbert House, Stradbally, Co Laois, tomorrow (7 November), and in Woodbine Books, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, on Sunday (8 November).
Cohen and MacKenna met in the 1980s and their friendship lasted until Cohen died. In the months before he died, they worked on ‘Between Your Love and Mine’, a mass for theatre, and Shane Sullivan took one of the leading roles in a production that toured Ireland, playing at Aras an Uachtaráin and selling out at the National Concert Hall, Dublin. Absent Friend is also the title of John’s book about that friendship.
Ballintubbert House is the birthplace of the poet C Day Lewis and former home of the actor John Hurt. The programme tonight and tomorrow includes music, reminiscences, excerpts from Cohen’s poetry and pieces of theatre inspired by Cohen’s songs. These promise to be thought-provoking evenings of music, warmth, nostalgia and celebration.
Last Sunday, the Folklore Rooms in Brighton hosted ‘Songs of Love and Hate – A Leonard Cohen Celebration’, a concert with the Irish singer-songwriter Pierce Joyce performing Cohen’s 1971 album of that name in its entirety, along with a selection of his classic and less-known songs.
Later next month, the Leonard Cohen Retreat in Glasgow on 5 December is looking at his work and spiritual significance as a poet, with discussions and reflections on his poetry and its relevance to personal and spiritual exploration.
The retreat is planned as a day dedicated to listening to and talking about Cohen and his insights. Participants are invited learn more about themselves, more about God, and more about what it means to live in light of God. For those who arrive on Friday, there will be a bonus session on spiritual themes in popular culture: music, television, and film. Friday evening will include an opportunity to pray in an Orthodox chapel, while for those who to stay over, Sunday promises to bring together all that is uncovered through Cohen in a celebration of the Divine Liturgy.
When he died then years ago, Leonard Leonard Cohen was buried in the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery in Montreal. His final abum, You Want it Darker, was released just a few weeks before he died. The final word of the title track is hineni, which he interpreted as ‘I’m ready My Lord’.
This evening, the words of this great Jewish poet on democracy coming to the USA seem appropriate for my Friday evening reflections, with prayers of thanks for a more peaceful and a more hopeful world tonight following this week’s mid-term elections.
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May his memory be a blessing ז״ל.
Sleep well tonight, sleep peacefully.
Shabbat Shalom
