Laurie Brown on the comfort of hearing Leonard Cohen's voice

CBC broadcaster Laurie Brown has interviewed Leonard Cohen a few times over the years and there was one thing that particularly struck her when asked if she noticed a change in him every time they spoke. 

"As his voice grew lower, he started to sound like, it's a cold and frigid Montreal morning and you're trying to hear a truck start out on the road — he started to sound like that," she says, with a laugh. "That was sort of the quintessential Canadian voice.

"As he got older, he explained that his emotions were getting bigger," she continues. "He would feel more sad and more happy; he would feel more attentive and more out of it; he would feel more competent and more withdrawn." 

But when Brown summarized what she will remember about Cohen most, she answered: "I will remember him as a searcher and I think he is an inspiration to people who feel like they are on the verge of collapse."