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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.
Leonard Cohen Anthology (Songbook) Page 1
