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Nov 14, 2016 By Christopher Roberts Leonard Cohen

Legendary singer/songwriter/poet Leonard Cohen‘s death was announced on Thursday even though he actually died last Monday. Okkervil River were performing in Bristol, England on Friday night when the band covered Cohen’s “Anthem,” a song from 1992’s The Future. Instead of waiting for a bunch of poorly shot fan videos to flood the Internet, over the weekend the band shared professionally recorded audio of the song. Listen below.

Frontman Will Sheff had this to say about the cover: “It’s been a terrible week, over here finishing a European tour watching my country slide towards doom. The news of Leonard Cohen’s death had nothing to do with everything else in the news but, in my agitated state, seemed somehow like it did. Cohen was a songwriting hero to me. I opened our Bristol show, the morning after the announcement of his death, with this solo cover of ‘Anthem,’ which sounds distressingly appropriate to the current moment. We did a full band version of ‘So Long, Marianne’ later in the set. This picture was taken on the ferry from Denmark to Germany. Grey afternoon.”

Okkervil River released a new album, Away, back in September via ATO.

Read our recent interview with Okkervil River’s Will Sheff.

(Via Stereogum)