Graham: Finding life in the year that everyone died

At the climax of the upcoming animated movie “Sing,” a shy elephant finds her voice by belting out Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” In the very next scene, a team of cute animals with celebrity voices gets together and fix up their town theater while David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure” plays over the soundtrack.

Even in an animated family movie, you can’t escape the specter of death in 2016.

This was the year that everyone died. In a normal year, the death of Cohen alone would be enough to cast a pall over the full 12 months. But Cohen’s passing followed a wave of titans whose untimely passings rocked our world to its core again and again.

We should have known we were in for a doozy of a year 10 days into January when Bowie went and died on us. Glenn Frey followed eight days later. And then the floodgates were opened.

Muhammad Ali. Nancy Reagan. Merle Haggard. Gordie Howe. Harper Lee. Leon Russell. Earth, Wind and Fire’s Maurice White. Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner. Beatles producer George Martin. Soul singer Sharon Jones. All gone.

And then there was Prince, the one that really packed a wallop. At 57 years of age, no one was expecting to have to say “so long” to the Purple One this year, and his absence leaves a gaping hole in the music world that will never be filled.

In Hollywood, the great Alan Rickman said his final farewell, and veteran director Garry Marshall took his last bow. Garry Shandling left us, as did Gene Wilder. The gifted young actor Anton Yelchin was taken from us entirely too soon, and even Abe Vigoda, whose death had been a running joke for years, was swallowed up by 2016. He didn’t make it a month into the year before his number was called.

Legends die every year, that’s just how life goes. But 2016 was especially unfair, snatching up greats left and right and leaving us to pick up the pieces.

It’s those pieces that we cling to as we move forward. Just 48 hours before his death, Bowie gave the world “Blackstar,” his final album and what turned out to be his parting statement. It’s riddled with hints and clues about his demise, which he is fully aware of as he sings “I know something is very wrong” on the haunting “I Can’t Give Everything Away.” The album became his first No. 1 in the U.S. and is a favorite heading into Tuesday’s Grammy nominations.

Two weeks before his death, Cohen released his final album, “You Want it Darker,” on which the title track finds him saying, “Hineni, Henini” — that’s Hebrew for “here I am” — “I’m ready, my lord.” Many of Cohen’s songs were written with death and the afterlife in mind; “you’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone/ I’ll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song,” he sang in “Tower of Song.” That was in 1988.

You may fire up “Die Hard” with the family this holiday season, and Rickman’s turn as suave villain Hans Gruber will shine even brighter. (Shame on the Academy for not nominating him for an Oscar for that role; going out on a limb here and saying Rickman’s performance has aged better than Alec Guinness’ in “Little Dorrit.”)

The dancing gleam in Yelchin’s eye — it’s there even in this year’s dark, dark “Green Room” — won’t go away, and Jones’ hurricane vocals now grow even more powerful. The work left behind by these artists takes on an added significance.

And they inspire great art in their wake. When A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife Dawg died in March, it marked the end of the rapper’s long battle with diabetes. Tribe hadn’t released a new album in almost 20 years. But last month, remaining members Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad convened for “We Got it From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service,” a poignant and timely rumination on the current state of the world.

Now the group — Phife included — is speaking to hip-hop’s consciousness in a way that has been unthinkable since the ’90s. Phife Dawg’s death gave Tribe new life, capping off a year we spent far too long waving goodbye. And for that we say hallelujah.

agraham@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2284

@grahamorama