The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen: Enhanced Edition Read online

  I can make it that far

  And I’ll see if my friends are still there

  Yes, and here’s to the few

  Who forgive what you do

  And the fewer who don’t even care

  And the night comes on

  It’s very calm

  I want to cross over, I want to go home

  But she says, Go back, go back to the World

  Though this song, included on Various Positions (1984), contains autobiographical, none of the actions ascribed to the mother, father or children specifically identify them as Cohen’s and the song’s literal suggestion that his father fought alongside him in Egypt is patently false. The family members are clearly more symbolic than flesh-and-blood. The emotional bleakness and personal despair in this song are hardly new departures for Cohen, but the knowledge that the singer must follow his mother’s injunction to “go back to the world” offers a rarer redemptive insight.

  Nightingale

  I built my house beside the wood

  So I could hear you singing

  And it was sweet and it was good

  And love was all beginning

  Fare thee well my nightingale

  ‘Twas long ago I found you

  Now all your songs of beauty fail

  The forest closes ‘round you

  The sun goes down behind a veil

  ‘Tis now that you would call me

  So rest in peace my nightingale

  Beneath your branch of holly

  Fare thee well my nightingale

  I lived but to be near you

  Tho‘ you are singing somewhere still

  I can no longer hear you

  Co-written by Anjani Thomas, this song, included on Dear Heather (2004), is a beautiful lament for the loss of … – that what is lost is unspecified (love? youth? capability?) only enhances the poetic effectiveness of this song. It is dedicated to the singer and actor Carl Anderson (1945-2004).

  On That Day

  Some people say

  It’s what we deserve

  For sins against g-d

  For crimes in the world

  I wouldn’t know

  I’m just holding the fort

  Since that day

  They wounded New York

  Some people say

  They hate us of old

  Our women unveiled

  Our slaves and our gold

  I wouldn’t know

  I’m just holding the fort

  But answer me this

  I won’t take you to court

  Did you go crazy

  Or did you report

  On that day

  On that day

  They wounded New York

  Included on Dear Heather (2004) and co-written by Anjani Thomas, this song is Cohen’s response to suicide attacks on America co-ordinated by al Qaeda on 11 September 2001, during which two hijacked aircraft were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

  One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong

  I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me.

  But the room just filled up with mosquitos,

  they heard that my body was free.

  Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night

  and I put it in your little shoe.

  And then I confess that I tortured the dress

  that you wore for the world to look through.

  I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit.

  Then he wrote himself a prescription,

  and your name was mentioned in it!

  Then he locked himself in a library shelf

  with the details of our honeymoon,

  and I hear from the nurse that he’s gotten much worse

  and his practice is all in a ruin.

  I heard of a saint who had loved you,

  so I studied all night in his school.

  He taught that the duty of lovers

  is to tarnish the golden rule.

  And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure

  he drowned himself in the pool.

  His body is gone but back here on the lawn

  his spirit continues to drool.

  An Eskimo showed me a movie

  he’d recently taken of you:

  the poor man could hardly stop shivering,

  his lips and his fingers were blue.

  I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes

  and I guess he just never got warm.

  But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,

  oh please let me come into the storm.

  One of Cohen’s earliest songs, included on his first album Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1967), it is a good example of his elegant craftsmanship. The emotion expressed undoubtedly belongs to Cohen the man but Cohen the artist, standing outside and “controlling” the work, shows that he knows and has anatomised exactly what is going on. Cohen has performed this song on all subsequent tours, which indicates that he recognises its quality. In the live version included on Live In Concert (1994), he adds the adjective “shabby” to “the details of our honeymoon”.

  Our Lady Of Solitude

  All summer long she touched me

  She gathered in my soul

  From many a thorn, from many thickets

  Her fingers, like a weaver’s

  Quick and cool

  And the light came from her body

  And the night went through her grace

  All summer long she touched me

  And I knew her, I knew her

  Face to face

  And her dress was blue and silver

  And her words were few and small

  She is the vessel of the whole wide world

  Mistress, oh mistress, of us all

  Dear Lady; Queen of Solitude

  I thank you with my heart

  for keeping me so close to thee

  while so many, oh so many, stood apart

  And the light came from her body

  And the night went through her grace

  All summer long she touched me

  I knew her, I knew her

  Face to face

  This song, included on Recent Songs (1979), is a longer adaption of the poem ‘All Summer Long’ from Death Of A Lady’s Man (a verse anthology whose title’s slight difference from that of his 1977 album may or may not be significant). The Montreal in which Cohen grew up was a profoundly Catholic city and he cannot fail to have noticed Catholicism’s pervasive Mariolatry. In the creation of a new aspect of the multi-faceted Nôtre Dame we can see that, for all the sensuality of the song’s language, the song has as much a spiritual dimension as a carnal one.

  Paper Thin Hotel

  The walls of this hotel are paper-thin

  Last night I heard you making love to him

  The struggle mouth to mouth and limb to limb

  The grunt of unity when he came in

  I stood there with my ear against the wall

  I was not seized by jealousy at all

  In fact a burden lifted from my soul

  I learned that love was out of my control

  A heavy burden lifted from my soul

  I heard that love was out of my control

  I listened to your kisses at the door

  I never heard the world so clear before

  You ran your bath and you began to sing

  I felt so good I couldn’t feel a thing

  I stood there with my ear against the wall ...

  And I can’t wait to tell you to your face

  And I can’t wait for you to take my place

  You are The Naked Angel In My Heart

  You are The Woman With Her Legs Apart

  It’s written on the walls of this hotel

  You go to heaven once you’ve been to hell

  A heavy burden lifted from my soul

  I heard that love was out of my control

  Clearly Cohen has had some interesting exp
eriences in hotel bedrooms although in this song of redemption, included on Death Of A Ladies’ Man (1977), we may take the hotel in question not as a particularly jerry-built edifice but as a metaphorical location.

  Please Don’t Pass Me By

  (A Disgrace)

  I was walking in New York City and I brushed up against

  the man in front of me. I felt a cardboard placard on his

  back. And when we passed a streetlight,

  I could read it, it said “Please don’t pass me by - I am blind,

  but you can see

  - I’ve been blinded totally - Please don’t pass me by.” I was

  walking along 7th

  Avenue, when I came to 14th Street I saw on the corner

  curious mutilations of the human form; it was a school for

  handicapped people. And there were

  cripples, and people in wheelchairs and crutches and it

  was snowing, and I got this sense that the whole city was

  singing this:

  Oh please don’t pass me by,

  oh please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, but you can see,

  yes, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh please don’t pass me by.

  And you know as I was walking I thought it was them who

  were singing it, I thought it was they who were singing it, I

  thought it was the other who was

  singing it, I thought it was someone else. But as I moved

  along I knew it was me, and that I was singing it to myself.

  It went:

  Please don’t pass me by,

  oh please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, but you can see,

  well, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh please don’t pass me by.

  Oh please don’t pass me by.

  Now I know that you’re sitting there deep in your velvet

  seats and you’re

  thinking “Uh, he’s up there saying something that he

  thinks about, but I’ll

  never have to sing that song.” But I promise you friends,

  that you’re going to

  be singing this song: it may not be tonight, it may not be

  tomorrow, but one day you’ll be on your knees and I want

  you to know the words when the time comes. Because

  you’re going to have to sing it to yourself, or to another, or

  to your brother. You’re going to have to learn to sing this

  song, it goes:

  Please don’t pass me by,

  ah you don’t have to sing this .. not for you.

  Please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, but you can see,

  yes, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh please don’t pass me by.

  Well I sing this for the Jews and the Gypsies and the smoke

  that they made.

  And I sing this for the children of England, their faces so

  grave. And I sing

  this for a saviour with no one to save. Hey, won’t you be

  naked for me? Hey, won’t you be naked for me? It goes:

  Please don’t pass me by,

  oh please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, but you can see,

  yes, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh now, please don’t pass me by.

  Now there’s nothing that I tell you that will help you con-

  nect the blood tortured night with the day that comes next.

  But I want it to hurt you, I want it to end. Oh, won’t you be

  naked for me? Oh now:

  Please don’t pass me by,

  oh please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, but you can see,

  but I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh, please don’t pass me by.

  Well I sing this song for you Blonde Beasts, I sing this

  song for you Venuses upon your shells on the foam of the

  sea. And I sing this for the freaks and the cripples, and

  the hunchback, and the burned, and the burning, and the

  maimed, and the broken, and the torn, and all of those that

  you talk about at the coffee tables, at the meetings, and the

  demonstrations, on the streets, in your music, in my songs.

  I mean the real ones that are burning, I mean the real ones

  that are burnin

  I say, please don’t pass me by,

  oh now, please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, yeah but you can see,

  ah now, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh no, please don’t pass me by.

  I know that you still think that its me. I know that you

  think that there’s

  somebody else. I know that these words aren’t yours. But I

  tell you friends

  that one day

  You’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down on your knees,

  you’re going to get down ..

  Oh, please don’t pass me by,

  oh, please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, yeah but you can see,

  yes, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh, please don’t pass me by.

  Well you know I have my songs and I have my poems. I

  have my book and I

  have the army, and sometimes I have your applause. I

  make some money,

  but you know what my friends, I’m still out there on the

  corner. I’m with the freaks, I’m with the hunted, I’m with

  the maimed, yes I’m with the torn, I’m

  with the down, I’m with the poor. Come on now ...

  Now I want to take away my dignity, yes take my dignity.

  My friends, take

  my dignity, take my form, take my style, take my honour,

  take my courage,

  take my time, take my time, .. time .. ‘Cause you know I’m

  with you singing

  this song. And I wish you would, I wish you would, I wish

  you would go home with someone else. Wish you’d go

  home with someone else. I wish you’d go home with some-

  one else. Don’t be the person that you came with. Oh, don’t

  be the person that you came with, Oh don’t be the person

  that you came with. Ah, I’m not going to be. I can’t stand

  him. I can’t stand who I am. That’s why I’ve got to get

  down on my knees. Because I can’t make it by myself. I’m

  not by myself anymore because the man I was before he

  was a tyrant, he was a slave,

  he was in chains, he was broken and then he sang:

  Oh, please don’t pass me by,

  oh, please don’t pass me by,

  for I am blind, yes I am blind, Oh but you can see,

  yes, I’ve been blinded totally,

  oh, please don’t pass me by.

  Well I hope I see you out there on the corner. Yeah I hope

  as I go by that I hear you whisper with the breeze. Be-

  cause I’m going to leave you now, I’m going to find me

  someone new. Find someone new.

  And please don’t pass me by.

  Recorded in 1970 and included on Live Songs (1973), this is an unusual Cohen song, both in its length and its structure – a simple chorus interspersed with ad-libbed spoken sections. It is essentially a performance piece, the text given here being taken from the live recording, the last occasion on which Cohen performed this song. The chorus is taken
straight from a New York beggar’s cardboard placard.

  Priests

  And who will write love songs for you

  when I am lord at last

  and your body is some little highway shrine

  that all my priests have passed,

  that all my priests have passed?

  My priests they will put flowers there,

  they will stand before the glass,

  but they’ll wear away your little window, love,

  they will trample on the grass,

  they will trample on the grass.

  And who will aim the arrow

  that men will follow through your grace

  when I am lord of memory

  and all your armour has turned to lace,

  and all your armour has turned to lace?

  The simple life of heroes,

  and the twisted life of saints,

  they just confuse the sunny calendar

  with their red and golden paints,

  with their red and golden paints.

  And all of you have seen the dance,

  that God has kept from me,

  but he has seen me watching you

  when all your minds were free

  when all your minds were free.

  And who will write love songs for you ...

  My priests they will put flowers there ...

  Cohen has not recorded this song himself. It has been covered by Judy Collins (on Wildflowers (1967)), Richie Havens (on Richard P Havens (1969)) and Enrique Morente (in Spanish on Omega (1996)).

  Queen Victoria

  Queen Victoria,

  My father and all his tobacco loved you,

  I love you too in all your forms,

  the slim unlovely virgin floating among German beards,

  the mean governess of the huge pink maps,

  the solitary mourner of a prince.

  Queen Victoria,

  I am cold and rainy,

  I am dirty as a glass roof in a train station,

  I feel like an empty cast iron exhibition,

  I want ornaments on everything,

  because my love, she gone with other boys.

  Queen Victoria,

  do you have a punishment under the white lace,

  will you be short with her, make her read those little Bibles,

  will you spank her with a mechanical corset.

  I want her pure as power, I want her skin slightly musty with petticoats

  will you wash the easy bidet out of her head?