Canadian poet, novelist, songwriter and performer Leonard Cohen has died at 82, although details are not available as to the cause or location.

Coming on the music scene in the 1960s, Cohen was touted as “as good a poet as Bob Dylan…and he can sing!” In spare verse, Cohen addressed love, despair, hope and loss, in songs of such power and potential that he had become one of the most covered songwriters of his era, to the point where he protested about his own song, “Hallelujah.” In 2009, Cohen reportedly told The Guardian, “I think it’s a good song, but too many people sing it.”

Cohen’s first big hit was “Suzanne,” in 1967, and we remember its haunting lines today:

But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open,
Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.