Remembering the poetry and songs of Leonard Cohen ten years after he died, hoping ‘Democracy is Coming to the USA’

Leonard Cohen at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham … when can we hope that ‘Democracy is coming to the USA’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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.

Leonard Cohen celebrated on postage stamps issued in Canada (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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.’

Leonard Cohen’s ‘Book of Mercy’ is a collection of psalms or short poems … he has been described as ‘the psalmist of the 20th and 21st centuries’

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.
.
May his memory be a blessing ז״ל.

Sleep well tonight, sleep peacefully.

Shabbat Shalom

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season 2026: 6, Friday 6 November 2026

The Unjust Steward … part of the East Window in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick, made in 1878 by Mayer & Co and illustrating 10 parables (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Leonard, sixth century hermit, and William Temple (1881-1944), Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher of the Faith. In Ireland, 6 November is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland.

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘The Unjust Steward,’ by the Kazakhstan Artist, Nelly Bube (Bubay)

Luke 16: 1-8 (NRSVA):

1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” 3 Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” 6 He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” 7 Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.’

Estate agents sigs on Beacon Street in Lichfied (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 16: 1-8), we read the parable of ‘the Unjust Steward’ or the ‘Parable of the Dishonest Manager’.

Whatever name you give it, this morning’s reading is about ignoring and exploiting the plight of the oppressed and the poor and tells us that this amounts to turning away from God and turning towards idolatry. We are called to turn around, and in turning to the needs of the poor we find that we are turning to God.

So, let me tell this morning’s Gospel story (Luke 16: 1-13) in another way. When I left school, I started training as a chartered surveyor and in estate manager. I never finished that training, but I can visualise some of the characters in this story.

A very, very rich man lives in a big city, let’s say it is Dublin. He has a luxurious lifestyle made possible by the income from the apartments, hotels and office blocks he owns in the city centre. He has been a major property developer, and a key shareholder in one of the business banks lending to developers.

He has hired an estate manager to run his property holding company, his building society, and his insurance agency, while he spends most of his time in his large country house in Co Kildare or Co Meath, in the Algarve playing golf or in Marbella on his yacht.

All the work of painting, maintaining the lifts and the plumbing in his apartment blocks, working the bar and servicing the rooms in his hotels, and working at the call centres in the office blocks, is done by people who travel in and out from the rims of the city, people whose grandparents probably once lived in the small terraced houses that once stood along the docks or the canal banks but were levelled to build those apartments, office blocks or hotels.

They pay their mortgages to the bank that financed the apartment blocks and similar developments. Their overdrafts are from the same bank. Their mortgage, insurance and life assurance policies are from an agency he owns. They find themselves increasingly in debt, paying school fees and health insurance, running a car or two cars, meeting term loan payments for fridges, freezers, TVs and laptops … What they earn is never enough to pay off their mortgages, their overdrafts, their term loans.

These families are slipping further and further into debt, working harder and harder to pay what cannot be paid. For those who have pension funds, little do they know that those funds have also been invested in those developments.

But these people never meet the rich developer. The immediate face of this system, of his companies and his investments, is the face of the estate agent who manages the blocks – a man whose grandparents came from the same families as the people who now suffer under his management.

However, his parents had escaped the system, he got a good education, and then got sucked into the system.

The developer hears rumours that the estate manager, who is also his insurance agent, has been squandering the developer’s resource, allowing himself a good expenses account. He is given his dismissal notice. Now, remember that ‘squandering’ is not necessarily a bad word here: the sower in another parable squanders seed by tossing it on roads and in bird-feeding zones; the shepherd in one of this week’s parables potentially squanders 99 sheep by running after the lost one; the widow searching for her lost coin risks losing her other nine as she sweeps everything out.

Meanwhile, the estate agent is working out his notice, but is no longer authorised to let, to rent, to buy, to sell, to do anything at all in the developer’s name.

He probably shares the same background only a generation or two ago with the maintenance workers, the tenants, the workers in the office blocks. But when he is out on his ear, they are not going to help him to find a place to live, or find a new job, given that up to now he has allied himself with the developer’s interests, collecting high rents, refusing to bring down rents when the reviews are due, managing the work rotas for the maintenance workers, forcing them to work longer hours rather than taking on the staff needed for the job, dealing unjustly with both tenants and workers.

He has been demanding higher rents and premiums, expecting longer working hours, yet providing fewer and fewer services – doing what certain economists have advised him to do: increasing profit margins and productivity and cutting costs and outlays at one and the same time.

He may be shrewd, but that is why he is called ‘the dishonest manager’ (verse 8).

The agent then does something that is extraordinarily clever.

He gathers all the tenants and workers who owe him money, and he declares that their debts have been written down, more than the courts could ever write them down, to something that might be repaid, freeing families from heart-breaking choices. He has been upping their rents and their premiums; now he brings them all back to a payable rate. And in doing this, he manages to wipe out the arrears that have been mounting up.

The smart agent manages not to tell the tenants or the workers that he has been sacked. Nor does he tell them that the developer has not authorised any of his largesse. But the tenants and the workers now think the developer, their landlord, is more generous than anyone else in his position could be. The developer is now a hero in their eyes – and, by extension, the agent is too.

The developer comes back for his quarterly or annual visit to pick up the income the agent has collected for him, and he gets a surprise that is exhilarating and challenging. The people are delighted to see him. Workers shake his hands, tenants lean out of the balconies to wave at him, children want to have ‘selfies’ taken with him.

Then, as he inspects the books in the small office the agent has worked from in the complex, he finds out what the agent has done in telling the tenants and the workers that the developer has forgiven their debts.

He has a choice to make.

He can go and tell them that it was all a terrible mistake, that the agent’s ‘stroke’ amounted not to generosity but to theft, or at least to dishonesty, and has no legal basis – he can tell them they are still responsible for the unpaid rent, for the overdrawn loans.

The warm welcome could quickly turn to nasty protests.

Or, the developer can go outside, bask in the unexpected welcome he has received, and take credit for the agent’s actions. At least he has cash in his hand where once he might have had nothing because of defaulting tenants and clients. That would save him going to court, but has he to take the agent back to work for him?

What would you do?

Picture yourself in this dilemma, both as the agent and as the developer.

From the agent’s point of view, does it matter any more what the developer decides to do? Whatever decision the developer makes, his future is safe – either he gets his job back, or his own people are going to look after him.

But here is the big problem: what the agent did is clearly dishonest. He has taken the landlord’s property and squandered it – even after he was sacked and had no right to do anything in the developer’s name.

What is it that the agent has done, without permission? Who has he deceived?

The agent forgives. He forgives things that he had no right to forgive. He forgives for all the wrong reasons, for personal gain and to compensate for his past misconduct. But that decisive action that he undertakes redeems him from a position to which it seems he could not be reconciled, to the developer any more than to the tenants and workers.

So what is the moral of the story?

This story is unique to Saint Luke’s Gospel, and for him there is a significance that is important throughout the third gospel: Forgive. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want. Forgive for the right reason. Forgive for the wrong reason. Forgive for no reason at all. Just forgive.

Remember, Saint Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer includes the helpful confusion: καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν: καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν (‘and forgive us our sins for indeed we ourselves are forgiving everyone who is [monetarily] indebted to us’) (Luke 11: 4) – the monetary indebtedness is obvious in the original Greek.

We pray it, but do we put it into practice?

The arrival of the Kingdom of God is no occasion for score-keeping of any kind, whether monetary or moral.

Why should I forgive someone who has sinned against me, or against my sense of what is obviously right? I don’t have to do it out of love for the other person.

I could forgive the other person because of what I pray in the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday if not every morning.

I could forgive because I know I would like to be forgiven myself.

I could forgive because I know what it is like to be me when I am unforgiving.

I could forgive because I am, or I want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Christ’s power to forgive and free someone just like me.

Or I could forgive because I think it will improve my life and sense of well-being.

It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive.

Extending the kind of grace God shows me in every possible arena – financial and moral – can only put me more deeply in touch with God’s grace.

If a crafty agent, a dishonest manager, an unjust steward, the sort of person we meet in this Gospel reading, can forgive to save his job or give himself a safety net when he is sacked, then those of us who have the experience of real grace, we who have been invited to the Heavenly Banquet, have a better reason than most people to forgive.

Property developments and financial growth on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin … where is the place for Christian values in today’s world of finance and debt? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 6 November 2026):

The theme this week (1 to 7 November 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘All Saints’ Day’ (pp 52-53). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by Matthew Anns, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 6 November 2026) invites us to pray:

Abba, we thank you for our sisters and brothers who can worship you without fear. Soften our hearts to those who are persecuted, and help us to support them in prayer and action.

The Collect:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect:
as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
touch our lips with the fire of your Spirit,
that we with all creation
may rejoice to sing your praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

An icon of the Saints of Ireland … in Ireland, today (6 November) is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org