Leonard Cohen RIP

How strange it was today - to learn that Leonard Cohen had died and then have to have breakfast with a Russian musician who didn't know or care, to wish 9 Russian musicians God Speed and send them on their way with embraces and cheerfulness, to entertain the hosts to coffee and cake and then, hours later, to allow myself to absorb the news and to communicate with others who were feeling sad.

How strange too that I should feel so bereft. After all, this is a singer whose work I only very recently appreciated, whose music meant little to me in my post-Elvis years (I'd moved on to Palestrina and Byrd) and whom I had never seen in the flesh. And yet I do feel a sense of loss - not because I can no longer listen to him but because I had realised that here was a soundtrack for my generation, the generation who are currently growing old, dying, fearing death or not, wondering about how it will all end. And in a sense, today reinforces what we know.

It will end in silence.