The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen: Enhanced Edition

by Leonard Cohen

  Dance Me To The End Of Love

  Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

  Dance me through the panic ‘til I’m gathered safely in

  Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the end of love

  Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone

  Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon

  Show me slowly what I only know the limits of

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on

  Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long

  We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the children who are asking to be born

  Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn

  Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

  Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in

  Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the end of love

  Dance me to the end of love

  A tender, sensual song of great poetic felicity, it was included on Various Positions (1984) and also, in a live version, on Live In Concert (1994). The importance of this song in Cohen’s catalogue can be judged from it having been his usual concert opener ever since he recorded it.

  Dear Heather

  Dear Heather

  Please walk by me again

  With a drink in your hand

  And your legs all white

  From the winter

  The shortest lyric in Cohen’s songbook, it sketches its subject with all the deftness of a Zen painter’s single stroke. It is the title track on Dear Heather (2004).

  Death Of A Ladies’ Man

  Ah the man she wanted all her life was hanging by a thread

  “I never even knew how much I wanted you,” she said.

  His muscles they were numbered and his style was obsolete.

  “O baby, I have come too late.” She knelt beside his feet.

  “I’ll never see a face like yours in years of men to come

  I’ll never see such arms again in wrestling or in love.”

  And all his virtues burning in the smoky Holocaust

  She took unto herself most everything her lover lost

  Now the master of this landscape he was standing at the view

  with a sparrow of St. Francis that he was preaching to

  She beckoned to the sentry of his high religious mood

  She said, “I’ll make a place between my legs,

  I’ll show you solitude.”

  He offered her an orgy in a many mirrored room

  He promised her protection for the issue of her womb

  She moved her body hard against a sharpened metal spoon

  She stopped the bloody rituals of passage to the moon

  She took his much admired oriental frame of mind

  and the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind

  She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine --

  “This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.”

  He tried to make a final stand beside the railway track

  She said, “The art of longing’s over and it’s never coming back.”

  She took his tavern parliament, his cap, his cocky dance,

  she mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache.

  The last time that I saw him he was trying hard to get

  a woman’s education but he’s not a woman yet

  And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy

  who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy.

  So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed

  it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed

  It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star

  I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

  It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star

  I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

  It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star

  I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

  A bleak and somewhat ungallant song, it was recorded in chaotic circumstances and included on the album of the same name (1977).

  Democracy

  It’s coming through a hole in the air,

  from those nights in Tiananmen Square.

  It’s coming from the feel

  that this ain’t exactly real,

  or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.

  From the wars against disorder,

  from the sirens night and day,

  from the fires of the homeless,

  from the ashes of the gay:

  Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

  It’s coming through a crack in the wall;

  on a visionary flood of alcohol;

  from the staggering account

  of the Sermon on the Mount

  which I don’t pretend to understand at all.

  It’s coming from the silence

  on the dock of the bay,

  from the brave, the bold, the battered

  heart of Chevrolet:

  Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

  It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,

  the holy places where the races meet;

  from the homicidal bitchin’

  that goes down in every kitchen

  to determine who will serve and who will eat.

  From the wells of disappointment

  where the women kneel to pray

  for the grace of God in the desert here

  and the desert far away:

  Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

  Sail on, sail on

  O mighty Ship of State!

  To the Shores of Need

  Past the Reefs of Greed

  Through the Squalls of Hate

  Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

  It’s coming to America first,

  the cradle of the best and of the worst.

  It’s here they got the range

  and the machinery for change

  and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.

  It’s here the family’s broken

  and it’s here the lonely say

  that the heart has got to open

  in a fundamental way:

  Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

  It’s coming from the women and the men.

  O baby, we’ll be making love again.

  We’ll be going down so deep

  the river’s going to weep,

  and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!

  It’s coming like the tidal flood

  beneath the lunar sway,

  imperial, mysterious,

  in amorous array:

  Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

  Sail on, sail on ...

  I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean

  I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.

  And I’m neither left or right

  I’m just staying home tonight,

  getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

  But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags

  that Time cannot decay,

  I’m junk but I’m still holding up

  this little wild bouquet:

  Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

  Included on The Future (1992), the recorded song is a selection from eighty-odd stanzas that Cohen had written. It dates from around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the pro-democracy protests, brutally suppressed, in Tiananmen Square. As a foreign national who has long lived and worked in the USA, Cohen reflects in this song the ambiguities of the “candid friend” – admiring and critical, hopeful and unillusioned.

  Diamonds In The Mine

  The woman in blue, she’s asking for revenge,

  the man in white -- that’s you -- says he has no friends.

  The river is swollen up with rusty cans

  and the trees are burning in your promised land.

  And there are no letters in the mailbox,

  and there are no grapes upon the vine,

  and there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore,

  and there are no diamonds in the mine.

  Well, you tell me that your lover has a broken limb,

  you say you’re kind of restless now and it’s on account of him.

  Well, I saw the man in question, it was just the other night,

  he was eating up a lady where the lions and Christians fight.

  And there are no letters in the mailbox

  and there are no grapes upon the vine,

  and there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore,

  and there are no diamonds in the mine.

  Ah, there is no comfort in the covens of the witch,

  some very clever doctor went and sterilized the bitch,

  and the only man of energy, yes the revolution’s pride,

  he trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child.

  And there are no letters in the mailbox,

  oh no, there are no, no grapes upon your vine,

  and there are, there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore,

  and there are no diamonds in your mine.

  And there are no letters in the mailbox,

  and there are no grapes upon the vine,

  and there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore,

  and there are no diamonds in your mine.

  Included on Songs Of Love And Hate (1971), this song marks an evolutionary stage in Cohen’s songwriting. There is a greater sense of humour here than is expressed in his earlier songs, an effect perhaps easier to achieve because the writer/singer is not a protagonist in the song.

  Do I Have To Dance All Night

  I’m Forty-One, the moon is full,

  you make love very well.

  You touch me like I touch myself,

  I like you Mademoiselle.

  You’re so fresh and you’re so new,

  I do enjoy you, Miss.

  There’s nothing I would rather do

  than move around just like this

  But do I have to dance all night?

  But do I have to dance all night?

  Ooh tell me, Bird of Paradise,

  do I have to dance all night?

  You never really have to tell me what

  you really think of me - alright.

  Let’s say I’m doing fine,

  but do I have to dance all night?

  Do I have to dance all night? ...

  I learned this step a while ago.

  I had to practice it while everybody slept.

  I waited half my life for you, you know,

  I didn’t even think that you’d accept.

  And here you are before me in the flesh

  saying “Yes, yes, yes!”

  But do I have to dance all night? ...

  I learned this step a while ago ...

  But do I have to dance all night? ...

  Cohen recorded this song live in Paris in 1976. It was released as a single sold only in Europe and has not been included on any of his albums.

  Don’t Go Home With Your Hard On

  I was born in a beauty salon

  My father was a dresser of hair

  My mother was a girl you could call on

  When you called she was always there

  When you called she was always there

  When you called she was always there

  When you called she was always there

  When you called she was always there

  Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on

  It will only drive you insane

  You can’t shake it (or break it) with your Motown

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  I’ve looked behind all of the faces

  That smile you down to you knees

  And the lips that say, Come on, taste us

  And when you try to they make you say Please

  When you try to they make you say Please

  When you try to they make you say Please

  When you try to they make you say Please

  When you try to they make you say Please

  Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on ...

  Here come’s your bride with her veil on

  Approach her, you wretch, if you dare

  Approach her, you ape with your tail on

  Once you have her she’ll always be there

  Once you have her she’ll always be there

  Once you have her she’ll always be there

  Once you have her she’ll always be there

  Once you have her she’ll always be there

  Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on ...

  So I work in that same beauty salon

  I’m chained to the old masquerade

  The lipstick, the shadow, the silicone

  Yes I follow my father’s trade

  Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on

  It will only drive you insane

  You can’t shake it (or break it) with your Motown

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  You can’t melt it down in the rain

  This catalogue of wise and useful advice was included on Death Of A Ladies’ Man (1977).

  Dress Rehearsal Rag

  Four o’clock in the afternoon

  and I didn’t feel like very much.

  I said to myself, “Where are you golden boy,

  where is your famous golden touch?”

  I thought you knew where

  all of the elephants lie down,

  I thought you were the crown prince

  of all the wheels in Ivory Town.

  Just take a look at your body now,

  there’s nothing much to save

  and a bitter voice in the mirror cries,

  “Hey, Prince, you need a shave.”

  Now if you can manage to get

  your trembling fingers to behave,

  why don’t you try unwrapping

  a stainless steel razor blade?

  That’s right, it’s come to this,

  yes it’s come to this,

  and wasn’t it a long way down,

  wasn’t it a strange way down?

  There’s no hot water

  and the cold is running thin.

  Well, what do you expect from

  the kind of places you’ve been living in?

  Don’t drink from that cup,

  it’s all caked and cracked along the rim.

  That’s not the electric light, my friend,

  that is your vision growing dim.

  Cover up your face with soap, there,

  now you’re Santa Claus.

  And you’ve got a gift for anyone

  who will give you his applause.

  I thought you were a racing man,

  ah, but you couldn’t take the pace.

  That’s a funeral in the mirror

  and it’s
stopping at your face.

  That’s right, it’s come to this,

  yes it’s come to this,

  and wasn’t it a long way down,

  ah wasn’t it a strange way down?

  Once there was a path

  and a girl with chestnut hair,

  and you passed the summers

  picking all of the berries that grew there;

  there were times she was a woman,

  oh, there were times she was just a child,

  and you held her in the shadows

  where the raspberries grow wild.

  And you climbed the twilight mountains

  and you sang about the view,

  and everywhere that you wandered

  love seemed to go along with you.

  That’s a hard one to remember,

  yes it makes you clench your fist.

  And then the veins stand out like highways,

  all along your wrist.

  And yes it’s come to this,

  it’s come to this,

  and wasn’t it a long way down,

  wasn’t it a strange way down?

  You can still find a job,

  go out and talk to a friend.

  On the back of every magazine

  there are those coupons you can send.

  Why don’t you join the Rosicrucians,

  they can give you back your hope,

  you can find your love with diagrams

  on a plain brown envelope.

  But you’ve used up all your coupons

  except the one that seems

  to be written on your wrist

  along with several thousand dreams.

  Now Santa Claus comes forward,

  that’s a razor in his mit;

  and he puts on his dark glasses

  and he shows you where to hit;

  and then the cameras pan,

  the stand in stunt man,

  dress rehearsal rag,

  it’s just the dress rehearsal rag,

  you know this dress rehearsal rag,

  it’s just a dress rehearsal rag.

  One of Cohen’s earliest songs, it was covered by Judy Collins in 1966 and performed by Cohen himself on BBC TV in 1968. On that occasion he introduced the song as one “that I have banned for myself – I sing it only on extremely joyous occasions when I know the landscape can support the despair that I’m about to project into it”. He recorded the song for Songs Of Love And Hate (1971) but is not known to have sung it since.