Leonard Cohen Anthology (Songbook) Read online

  9781458449818

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  Table of Contents

  Bird On A Wire

  Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

  Suzanne

  Chelsea Hotel #2

  So Long, Marianne

  Tower Of Song

  I’m Your Man

  Master Song

  The Window

  Jazz Police

  Take This Longing

  Is This What You Wanted

  The Stranger Song

  Humbled In Love

  Sisters Of Mercy

  Famous Blue Raincoat

  Ain’t No Cure For Love

  (No) Diamonds In The Mine

  Story Of Isaac

  Tonight Will Be Fine

  The Guests

  Sing Another Song, Boys

  A Singer Must Die

  The Gypsy’s Wife

  Seems So Long Ago, Nancy

  Take This Waltz

  Lady Midnight

  Love Calls You By Your Name

  Avalanche

  Came So Far For Beauty

  You Know Who I Am

  The Smokey Life

  Dress Rehearsal Rag

  There Is A War

  Joan Of Arc

  Winter Lady

  One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong

  Why Don’t You Try

  The Traitor

  Who By Fire

  First We Take Manhattan

  Everybody Knows

  Lover Lover Lover

  COVER DESIGN BY PEARCE MARCHBANK STUDIOS

  ARRANGEMENTS BY FRANK METIS

  THIS BOOK COPYRIGHT © 1991 BY AMSCO PUBLICATIONS,

  A DIVISION OF MUSIC SALES CORPORATION, NEW YORK, NY.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE

  REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS

  INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS,

  WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.

  BIRD ON A WIRE

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  HEY THAT’S NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. I’m not looking for another

  As I wander in my time.

  Walk me to the corner,

  Our steps will always rhyme.

  You know my love goes with you

  As your love stays with me,

  It’s just the way it changes

  Like the shoreline and the sea.

  But let’s not talk of love or chains

  And things we can’t untie,

  Your eyes are soft with sorrow,

  Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

  3. I loved you in the morning,

  Our kisses deep and warm,

  Your hair upon the pillow,

  Like a sleepy golden storm.

  Yes, many loved before us,

  I know that we are not new,

  In city and in forest,

  They smiled like me and you.

  But let’s not talk of love or chains

  And things we can’t untie,

  Your eyes are soft with sorrow,

  Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

  SUZANNE

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. And Jesus was a sailor

  When he walked upon the water,

  And he spent a long time watching

  From his lonely wooden tower.

  And when he knew for certain

  Only drowning men could see him,

  He said, “All men will be sailors then

  Until the sea shall free them.”

  But he himself was broken,

  Long before the sky would open.

  Forsaken, almost human,

  He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.

  And you want to travel with him,

  And you want to travel blind,

  And you think maybe you’ll trust him,

  For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.

  3. Now Suzanne takes your hand,

  And she leads you to the river.

  She is wearing rags and feathers

  From Salvation Army counters.

  And the sun pours down like honey

  On our lady of the harbour.

  And she shows you where to look

  Among the garbage and the flowers.

  There are heroes in the seaweed,

  There are children in the morning,

  They are leaning out for love,

  And they will lean that way forever.

  While Suzanne holds the mirror.

  And you want to travel with her,

  And you want to travel blind,

  And you know that you can trust her,

  For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.

  CHELSEA HOTEL #2

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,

  You were famous, your heart was a legend.

  You told me again you preferred handsome men,

  But for me you would make an exception.

  And clenching your fist for the ones like us

  Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,

  You fixed yourself, you said, “Well, never mind,

  We are ugly but we have the music.”

  Chorus

  3. I don’t mean to suggest that I loved you the best,

  I can’t keep track of each fallen robin.

  I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,

  That’s all, I don’t think of you that often.

  SO LONG, MARIANNE

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. Well, you know that I love to live with you,

  But you make me forget so very much.

  I forget to pray for the angel,

  And then the angels forget to pray for us.

  Chorus

  3. We met when we were almost young,

  Deep in the green lilac park.

  You held on to me like I was a crucifix,

  As we went kneeling through the dark.

  Chorus

  4. Your letters, they all say that you’re beside me now.

  Then why do I feel alone?

  I’m standing on a ledge, and your fine spider web

  Is fastening my ankle to a stone.

  Chorus

  5. For now I need your hidden love,

  I’m cold as a new razor blade.

  You left when I told you I was curious,

  I never said that I was brave.

  Chorus

  6. Oh, you’re really such a pretty one.

  I see you’ve gone and changed your name again,

  And just when I climbed this whole mountainside

  To wash my eyelids in the rain.

  Chorus

  7. O your eyes, well, I forget your eyes,

  Your body’s at home in every sea.

  How come you gave away your news to everyone,

  That you said was a secret for me?

  Chorus

  TOWER OF SONG

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. I said to Hank Williams, “How lonely does it get?”

  Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet.

  But
I hear him coughing all night long,

  A hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song.

  3. I was born like this, I had no choice.

  I was born with the gift of a golden voice.

  And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond,

  They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song.

  4. So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll.

  I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all.

  I’m standing by the window where the light is strong.

  They don’t let a woman kill you, not in the Tower of Song.

  5. Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter, but of this you may be sure:

  The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor.

  And there’s a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong.

  You see, you hear these funny voices in the Tower of Song.

  I’M YOUR MAN

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  MASTER SONG

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. You met him at some temple

  Where they take your clothes at the door.

  He was just a numberless man in a chair

  Who had just come back from the war.

  And you wrap up his tired face in your hair,

  And he hands you the apple core.

  Then he touches your lips, now so suddenly bare

  Of all the kisses we put on sometime before.

  3. And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk

  With a collar of leather and nails.

  And he never once made you explain or talk

  About all of the little details,

  Such as who had a worm and who had a rock,

  And who had you through the mails.

  Now your love is a secret all over the block,

  And it never stops, not even

  when your master fails.

  4. He took you up in his aeroplane

  Which he flew without any hands.

  And you cruised above the ribbons of rain

  That drove the crowd from the stands.

  Then he killed the lights in a lonely lane

  Where an ape with angel glands,

  Erased the final wisps of pain

  With the music of rubber bands.

  5. And now I hear your master sing,

  You kneel for him to come.

  His body is a golden string

  That your body is hanging from.

  His body is a golden string,

  My body has grown numb.

  O now you hear your master sing,

  Your shirt is all undone.

  6. And will you kneel beside this bed

  That we polished so long ago,

  Before your master chose instead

  To make my bed of snow?

  Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red,

  And you’re speaking far too low.

  I can’t make out what your master said

  Before he made you go.

  7. And I think you’re playing far too rough

  For a lady who’s been to the moon.

  I’ve lain by this window long enough,

  You get used to an empty room.

  And your love is some dust

  in an old man’s cuff

  Who is tapping his foot to a tune.

  And your thighs are a ruin,

  and you want too much,

  Let’s say you came back sometime too soon.

  8. I loved your master perfectly,

  I taught him all that he knew.

  He was starving in some deep mystery

  Like a man who is sure what is true.

  And I sent you to him with my guarantee,

  I could teach him something new.

  And I taught him how you would long for me,

  No matter what he said, no matter what you do.

  9. I believe that you heard your master sing

  While I was sick in bed.

  I’m sure that he told you everything

  I must keep locked away in my head.

  Your master took you traveling,

  Well, at least that’s what you said.

  I come back to bring

  Your prisoner wine and bread.

  THE WINDOW

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. And come forth from the cloud of unknowing,

  and kiss the cheek of the moon.

  The new Jerusalem glowing,

  why tarry all night in the ruin?

  And leave no word of discomfort,

  and leave no observer to mourn,

  But climb on your tears and be silent

  like the rose on its ladder of thorns. Chorus

  3. Then lay your rose on the fire,

  the fire give up to the sun.

  The sun give over to splendor

  in the arms of the High Holy One.

  For the Holy One dreams of a letter,

  dreams of a letter’s death.

  Oh, bless the continuous stutter

  of the word being made into flesh.

  Chorus

  JAZZ POLICE

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN AND JEFF FISHER

  TAKE THIS LONGING

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. Your body like a searchlight,

  My poverty revealed.

  I would like to try your charity

  Until you cry, now you must try my greed.

  And everything depends upon

  How near you sleep to me.

  Chorus: Just take this longing from my tongue,

  And all the lonely things my hands have done.

  Let me see your beauty broken down,

  Like you would do for one you love.

  3. Hungry as an archway

  Through which the troops have passed.

  I stand in ruins behind you

  With your winter clothes, your broken saddle straps.

  I love to see you naked over there,

  Especially from the back.

  Chorus: Ah, take this longing from my tongue,

  And all the useless things my hands have done.

  Untie for me your high blue gown,

  Like you would do for the one you love.

  4. You’re faithful to the better man,

  I’m afraid that he left.

  So let me judge your love affair

  In this very room where I have sentenced mine to death.

  I’ll even wear these old laurel leaves

  That he’s shaken from his head.

  Chorus: Just take this longing from my tongue,

  And all the useless things my hands have done.

  Let me see your beauty broken down,

  Like you would do for one you love.

  Like you would do for one you love.

  IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. You were Marlon Brando, I was Steve McQueen.

  You were K.Y.Jelly, I was Vaseline.

  You were The Father of Modern Medicine, I was Mr. Clean.

  You were The Whore and the Beast of Babylon.

  I was Rin Tin Tin.

  Chorus

  3. You got old and wrinkled, I stayed seventeen.

  You lusted after so many, I lay here with one.

  You defied your solitude, I came through alone.

  You said you could never love me, I undid your gown.

  Chorus

  THE STRANGER SONG

  WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEONARD COHEN

  Additional Lyrics

  2. And then sweeping up the jokers that

  he left behind,

  You find he did not leave you very much,

  Not even laughter.

  Like any dealer, he was watching for the card that is so high and wild,

  He’ll
never need to deal another.

  He was just some Joseph looking for a manger,

  He was just some Joseph looking for a manger.

  3. And then leaning on your window sill,

  He’ll say one day you caused his will

  To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter.

  And then taking from his wallet an old schedule of trains, he’ll say,

  “I told you when I came I was a stranger,

  I told you when I came I was a stranger.”

  4. But now another stranger

  Seems to want to ignore his dreams,

  As though they were the burden of some other.

  O, you’ve seen that kind of man before,

  His golden arm dispatching cards.

  But now it’s rusted from the elbow to the finger,

  Yes, he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter.

  5. You hate to watch another tired man

  lay down his hand,

  Like he was giving up the holy game of poker.