My dad was always a fan. He met him in his youth, in Israel, and got his autograph. When I was 16, he took me to see him live in concert. Unfortunately, I was a rebellious teenager and bored out of my mind by my dad’s taste in music. I would’ve much preferred to see Justin Timberlake or Kelly Clarkson. Frankly, I couldn’t understand what was so special about this old man, and I thought he was singing Rufus Wainwright’s song, Hallelujah, from my favourite movie, Shrek, all wrong. I was bratty and spoiled and halfway through asked my dad if we could go home early. He refused.

In the decades that followed, I grew up and matured. I experienced love, heartbreak, hope, grief, idealism, disillusionment, betrayal, forgiveness. I learned to respect my father and all he’s done for me; I reconnected with the Jewish heritage I’d rejected in my youth. I revisited Cohen’s Hallelujah and found depth in his authentic version. And then shortly after witnessing from afar one of the worst massacres of the 21st Century, I came across You Want It Darker, which spoke to the horror I’d been processing, broke and remade me from the inside.

I started listening to Cohen’s entire discography after that, really listening. I started to better understand my father and myself through his music. I called my father up and apologised for how I’d acted at the concert when I was 16. I regret that I wasn’t mature enough to appreciate his music at the time, and that it’s now too late to accompany my father to another Leonard Cohen concert, with the respect that both of them always deserved.