The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen: Enhanced Edition

by Leonard Cohen

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.

  One of Cohen’s most famous songs, it is based on the poem ‘ Suzanne Takes You Down’ from Parasites Of Heaven, and was the first track on his first album Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1967). A live version was included on Live In Concert (1994). The Suzanne of the title was a friend from Montreal, Suzanne Vaillancourt née Verdal (not Suzanne Elrod, the mother of Cohen’s children Lorca and Adam). She was known for serving Constant Comment tea, which is flavoured with orange rind. The “lonely wooden tower” is the chapel of Nôtre Dame de Bon Secours, the mariner’s church in old Montreal which features a statue of the Virgin Mary (“our lady of the harbour”) facing out to sea to bless departing ships.

  Take This Longing

  Many men have loved the bells

  you fastened to the rein,

  and everyone who wanted you

  they found what they will always want again.

  Your beauty lost to you yourself

  just as it was lost to them.

  Oh take this longing from my tongue,

  whatever useless things these hands have done.

  Let me see your beauty broken down

  like you would do for one you love.

  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

  Just take this longing from my tongue

  all the lonely things my hands have done.

  Let me see your beauty broken down

  like you would do for one you love.

  Hungry as an archway

  through which the troops have passed,

  I stand in ruins behind you,

  with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps.

  I love to see you naked over there

  especially from the back.

  Oh take this longing from my tongue,

  all the useless things my hands have done,

  untie for me your hired blue gown,

  like you would do for one that you love.

  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.

  Just take this longing from my tongue,

  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.

  Included on New Skin For The Old Ceremony (1974), this is a reworking of an earlier song ‘The Bells’, covered by Buffy Sainte-Marie on her album She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina (1971). The principal difference between the two versions is the addition of the chorus line from which the later version takes its title.

  Take This Waltz

  Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women

  There’s a shoulder where Death comes to cry

  There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows

  There’s a tree where the doves go to die

  There’s a piece that was torn from the morning

  And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

  Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

  Take this waltz, take this waltz

  Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

  Oh I want you, I want you, I want you

  On a chair with a dead magazine

  In the cave at the tip of the lily

  In some hallways where love’s never been

  On a bed where the moon has been sweating

  In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

  Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

  Take this waltz, take this waltz

  Take its broken waist in your hand

  This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz

  With its very own breath of brandy and Death

  Dragging its tail in the sea

  There’s a concert hall in Vienna

  Where your mouth had a thousand reviews

  There’s a bar where the boys have stopped talking

  They’ve been sentenced to death by the blues

  Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture

  With a garland of freshly cut tears?

  Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

  Take this waltz, take this waltz

  Take this waltz it’s been dying for years

  There’s an attic where children are playing

  Where I’ve got to lie down with you soon

  In a dream of Hungarian lanterns

  In the mist of some sweet afternoon

  And I’ll see what you’ve chained to your sorrow

  All your sheep and your lilies of snow

  Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

  Take this waltz, take this waltz

  With its “I’ll never forget you, you know!”

  This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz ...

  And I’ll dance with you in Vienna

  I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise

  The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,

  My mouth on the dew of your thighs

  And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,

  With the photographs there, and the moss

  And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty

  My cheap violin and my cross

  And you’ll carry me down on your dancing

  To the pools that you lift on your wrist

  Oh my love, Oh my love

  Take this waltz, take this waltz

  It’s yours now. It’s all that there is

  The lyrics of this song, included on I’m Your Man (1988), are Cohen’s translation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem ‘Pequeño Vals Vienès’ from his collection Poetas En Nueva York. It was written for a tribute album compiled to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Lorca’s murder by Franco’s fascist soldiers in 1936. Cohen had first encountered Lorca’s poems at the age of fifteen and, in literary terms, it was love at first sight. However, Lorca’s influence on Cohen’s work, profound thoughit is, is intellectual and emotional rather than stylistic.

  Teachers

  I met a woman long ago

  her hair the black that black can go,

  Are you a teacher of the heart?

  Soft she answered no.

  I met a girl across the sea,

  her hair the gold that gold can be,

  Are you a teacher of the heart?

  Yes, but not for thee.

  I met a man who lost his mind

  in some lost place I had to find,

  follow me the wise man said,

  but he walked behind.

  I walked into a hospital

  where none was sick and none was well,

  when at night the nurses left

  I could not walk at all.

  Morning came and then came noon,

  dinner time a scalpel blade

  lay beside my silver spoon.

  Some girls wander by mistake

  into the mess that scalpels make.

  Are you the teachers of my heart?

  We teach old hearts to break.

  One morning I woke up alone,

  the hospital and the nurses gone.

 
Have I carved enough my Lord?

  Child, you are a bone.

  I ate and ate and ate,

  no I did not miss a plate, well

  How much do these suppers cost?

  We’ll take it out in hate.

  I spent my hatred everyplace,

  on every work on every face,

  someone gave me wishes

  and I wished for an embrace.

  Several girls embraced me, then

  I was embraced by men,

  Is my passion perfect?

  No, do it once again.

  I was handsome I was strong,

  I knew the words of every song.

  Did my singing please you?

  No, the words you sang were wrong.

  Who is it whom I address,

  who takes down what I confess?

  Are you the teachers of my heart?

  We teach old hearts to rest.

  Oh teachers are my lessons done?

  I cannot do another one.

  They laughed and laughed and said, Well child,

  are your lessons done?

  are your lessons done?

  are your lessons done?

  Included on Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1967), this song is based on the poem ‘I Met A Woman Long Ago’ from Parasites Of Heaven. Thematically similar to “Master Song”, and predating Cohen’s meeting his own “master” Roshi, it is not a song (or indeed a theme) that Cohen has persisted with, not having sung it since 1968.

  Tennessee Waltz

  I was dancing with my darlin’

  to the Tennessee Waltz

  When an old friend I happened to see

  Introduced him to my loved one

  and while they were waltzing

  My friend stole my sweetheart from me

  I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz

  Now I know just how much I have lost

  Yes I lost my little darlin’

  The night they were playing

  The beautiful Tennessee Waltz.

  She comes dancing through the darkness

  To the Tennessee Waltz

  And I feel like I’m falling apart

  And it’s stronger than drink

  And it’s deeper than sorrow

  This darkness she’s left in my heart.

  The basic song was written in 1947 by Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King, and was a favourite in both the country and popular music genres. Cohen added the third stanza for the live version (dating from 1985) included on Dear Heather (2004).

  That Don’t Make It Junk

  I fought against the bottle,

  But I had to do it drunk –

  Took my diamond to the pawnshop –

  But that don’t make it junk.

  I know that I’m forgiven,

  But I don’t know how I know

  I don’t trust my inner feelings –

  Inner feelings come and go.

  How come you called me here tonight?

  How come you bother

  With my heart at all?

  You raise me up in grace,

  Then you put me in a place,

  Where I must fall.

  Too late to fix another drink –

  The lights are going out –

  I’ll listen to the darkness sing –

  I know what that’s about.

  I tried to love you my way,

  But I couldn’t make it hold.

  So I closed the Book of Longing

  And I do what I am told.

  How come you called me here tonight?

  How come you bother with my heart at all?

  You raise me up in grace,

  Then you put me in a place,

  Where I must fall.

  I fought against the bottle,

  But I had to do it drunk –

  Took my diamond to the pawnshop –

  But that don’t make it junk.

  This song, co-written by Sharon Robinson, was included on Ten New Songs (2001). Does the phrase “took my diamond to the pawnshop / but that don’t make it junk” refer to Cohen’s abandonment of the “pure” literary life in favour of a career in popular music?

  The Butcher

  I came upon a butcher,

  he was slaughtering a lamb,

  I accused him there

  with his tortured lamb.

  He said, “Listen to me, child,

  I am what I am

  and you, you are my only son.”

  Well, I found a silver needle,

  I put it into my arm.

  It did some good,

  did some harm.

  But the nights were cold

  and it almost kept me warm,

  how come the night is long?

  I saw some flowers growing up

  where that lamb fell down;

  was I supposed to praise my Lord,

  make some kind of joyful sound?

  He said, “Listen, listen to me now,

  I go round and round

  and you, you are my only child.”

  Do not leave me now,

  do not leave me now,

  I’m broken down

  from a recent fall.

  Blood upon my body

  and ice upon my soul,

  lead on, my son, it is your world.

  Some have claimed that this song, included on Songs From A Room (1969), is about drugs (doubtless because of the needle reference in the second stanza), but if so it is a singularly odd treatment of the subject. A better reading, remembering the prevailing attitude of Cohen and his literary confreres in Fifties Montreal, is that the lamb slaughtered in the opening lines represents personal and cultural innocence and simplicity and that it is society’s spiritual murder of the pure and the innocent that is Cohen’s subject matter. The needle is one escape from the negative cultural condition of the times, but an unsuccessful one – “it almost kept me warm”.

  The Captain

  Now the Captain called me to his bed

  He fumbled for my hand

  “Take these silver bars,” he said

  “I’m giving you command.”

  “Command of what, there’s no one here

  There’s only you and me --

  All the rest are dead or in retreat

  Or with the enemy.”

  “Complain, complain, that’s all you’ve done

  Ever since we lost

  If it’s not the Crucifixion

  Then it’s the Holocaust.”

  “May Christ have mercy on your soul

  For making such a joke

  Amid these hearts that burn like coal

  And the flesh that rose like smoke.”

  “I know that you have suffered, lad,

  But suffer this awhile:

  Whatever makes a soldier sad

  Will make a killer smile.”

  “I’m leaving, Captain, I must go

  There’s blood upon your hand

  But tell me, Captain, if you know

  Of a decent place to stand.”

  “There is no decent place to stand

  In a massacre;

  But if a woman take your hand

  Go and stand with her.”

  “I left a wife in Tennessee

  And a baby in Saigon --

  I risked my life, but not to hear

  Some country-western song.”

  “Ah but if you cannot raise your love

  To a very high degree,

  Then you’re just the man I’ve been thinking of --

  So come and stand with me.”

  “Your standing days are done,” I cried,

  “You’ll rally me no more.

  I don’t even know what side

  We fought on, or what for.”

  “I’m on the side that’s always lost

  Against the side of Heaven

  I’m on the side of Snake-eyes tossed

  Against the side of Seven.

  And I’ve read the Bill of Human Rights


  And some of it was true

  But there wasn’t any burden left

  So I’m laying it on you.”

  Now the Captain he was dying

  But the Captain wasn’t hurt

  The silver bars were in my hand

  I pinned them to my shirt.

  At first sight a mere piece of narrative fun, this song, included on Various Positions (1984), is clearly not the simple ditty it first appears to be. The song is overtly about inheritance, but what is the inheritance in question? One reading is that it is the Jewish tradition – the Captain’s moan “complain, complain ..” echoes many a Jewish joke and reflects an anti-Semitism both ancient and modern. Another is that the song deals with the passing of an artistic baton, perhaps one carved in the literary circles of Cohen’s youth or perhaps a musical one being passed on by a songwriter in his fifties. Is Cohen the testator or the heir, the Captain or his truculent successor? This being a work of art, there may be more than one answer.

  The Faith

  The sea so deep and blind

  The sun, the wild regret

  The club, the wheel, the mind,

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  The club, the wheel, the mind

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  The blood, the soil, the faith

  These words you can’t forget

  Your vow, your holy place

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  The blood, the soil, the faith

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  A cross on every hill

  A star, a minaret

  So many graves to fill

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  So many graves to fill

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  The sea so deep and blind

  Where still the sun must set

  And time itself unwind

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  And time itself unwind

  O love, aren’t you tired yet?

  Included on Dear Heather (2004), this song is comprised new lyrics sung to the tune of ‘Un Canadien Errant’, a song written in 1842 by Antoine Gerin-Lajoie to celebrate those exiled after the failed Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837/8 and covered by Cohen on Recent Songs (1979). The new song is, of course, on an entirely different subject.

  The Future

  Give me back my broken night

  my mirrored room, my secret life

  it’s lonely here,