“The feeling that it was a ‘goodbye’ was rather unavoidable. To finally connect around Leonard’s work – and it was something that had been in the making for many years – left both of them very fulfilled. It was extremely important for both of them that (his son) Adam produced the record. He played it for me and I was, of course, blown away. I was visiting him before my tour of Europe. “I heard the whole of You Want It Darker for the first time in August at Leonard’s house. I’d present a couple of ideas to Leonard and then we worked through the rest of it together. And I would build a melody and chord changes based on my interpretation of the lyrics. “Sometimes I would change the order, or I’d decide, ‘Okay, this stanza should be the chorus’. “Leonard would send me a lyric, and I’d go to my piano and try to understand where the verse was and what the chords should be, and just shape it into less of a poem and more of a song lyric, if you will, without changing any of the words. That’s why his songs are so timely – and so timeless. Working and then re-working them brought another level of depth that probably even he couldn’t predict.

Leonard had an immeasurable wisdom and intellect, and was able to access it and put it into his work. Discussing all sorts of things that were on his mind was part of the friendship, part of the interaction. In terms of the man/woman thing, he always respected you fully as an equal. We often referred back to the blues greats and to the Muscle Shoals stuff. He was interested in soul and blues and R&B, all of that. “He hadn’t made an album for six years before Ten New Songs and was looking for a way to express these lyrics he’d written that would feel like a whole body of work – that’s how we ended up doing the whole project together. He seemed to like me right off the bat, so it was very comfortable. He was extremely gracious and hospitable and warm. “As soon as I met Leonard at that Field Commander Cohen audition, we seemed to hit it off. 'There was a special rapport between him and Ireland,' the co-writer of 2001's classic Ten New Songs tells Stuart Clark.

Sharon robinson leonard cohen