The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen

**For Leonard**

**May his memory be bound with the spirit of the living
who love him the world over.**

_I greet you from the other side_

_Of sorrow and despair_

_With a love so vast and shattered_

_It will reach you everywhere_

'Heart With No Companion'

"I don't think of myself as a writer, a singer or whatever.
The occupation of being a man is so much more."

Leonard Cohen

_Here I stand_

_I'm your man_

'I'm Your Man'
**Contents**

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My Leonard Cohen

In The Shed

At The House

At Rehearsals

In Leonard's Study

_Songs Of Leonard Cohen_

_Songs From A Room_

_Songs Of Love And Hate_

_Live Songs_

_New Skin For The Old Ceremony_

_Do I Have To Dance All Night_

_Death Of A Ladies' Man_

_Recent Songs_

_Various Positions_

_I'm Your Man_

_The Future_

_More Best Of Leonard Cohen_

_Ten New Songs_

_Dear Heather_

_Live In London_

_Old Ideas_

_Popular Problems_

_Can't Forget: A Souvenir Of The Grand Tour_

_You Want It Darker_

Other Songs

Recommend to a Friend

Also Available...

Index

Song Credits

Acknowledgements

* * *

Lyrics to songs that Leonard Cohen recorded more than once are not repeated throughout the book. Lyrics by other writers are not here included. This book is not intended to be a discography.
**Digital Timeline**

Click below for an interactive Digital Timeline of Leonard Cohen's life; experience the beauty of his art with video footage of live performances and interviews...

Click here
**My Leonard Cohen**

* * *

**HE LED ME** to his garden. I followed him to his shed. He looked more handsome than in any of his photos. So attractive, in fact, that with my first glance at him my face burned as if I were an overawed adolescent groupie. "Make yourself comfortable," he said once we entered. His speaking voice was way more seductive in person than his singing voice, and so captivating it left me with no mind to notice if I made myself comfortable on a chair or a bench or the coffee table. But I do remember the fragrant candles that scented the air, their flames dancing in the gentle summer breeze.

To regain my composure and some professional distance, I clamped on my headphones and started to conduct the sound check. The microphone picked up the whimpering of an infant – Adam, his firstborn – from somewhere inside the modest two-storey house. Tucked in an immigrants' working class Montreal neighbourhood, the house was sparsely decorated in a sort of monastic minimalistic style. He lived there with Suzanne in that summer of 1974 – not the Suzanne of the song, but the mother of his children. (She was pregnant then with their daughter, Lorca. Once the interview was underway, whenever Adam's cries punctuated our conversation, Leonard Cohen would sing in a whisper, almost as if to himself, lines from 'I Tried To Leave You': " _The years go by, you lose your pride./ The baby's crying, so you do not go outside,/ and all your work it's right before your eyes_."

I assumed he had granted me the interview to promote his new album, _New Skin For The Old Ceremony_ , as well as his upcoming tour to Canada, the USA and Europe, and I was more than glad to give it a huge plug on one of the most popular CBC radio programs broadcast across Canada. But I wanted the interview to do more, to offer an insight into the man beyond the irony, the artist beyond the ambiguities, and the mystery of his "knife-edged paradox", as Jon Pareles put it in the _New York Times_ , "the finely balanced lyrics that can be deliberately heard (and read) incontradictory ways: reverence or blasphemy, affection or animosity, reportage or mockery, tragedy or comedy."

Our cross purposes combined with, as Leonard would put it, the "war between the man and the woman", sparked a lighthearted jousting in some parts of the interview and a lot of laughs. To my delight, he pulled back the curtains on Leonard Cohen, the man, as well as on his creative processes, which he liked to describe as a spiritual channel to the miraculous.

But at a certain point, his hand shot under the wide hem of my skirt and up my thighs – to regain his energy that was drained by my barrage of questions. Or so he maintained. He was approaching age 40 that August and his shirt was unbuttoned low enough to suggest virility. I was only a few years younger than him and quite experienced in most facets of the highs and lows of the artistic life, but this was the last thing I expected from anyone I interviewed, let alone Leonard Cohen. Caught off-guard I blushed and giggled nervously like a startled maiden: "Oh my God, Leonard! No! What's with you!" as I squirmed my thighs free of his invading hand.

Later in the interview, Leonard tried a different strategy to avoid my questions: he opened a child's homework notebook in which poems or drafts of poems were penned. His face lit up as he flipped though a few pages; then, barely able to keep the corners of his lips from curling in an amused, mischievous smile, he challenged me: "Ask me any question, any questions... and you'll see that all the answers are here, all the answers are here... isn't it wonderful..."

I instinctively picked up his challenge, and to his delight and my amazement the more mundane my questions, the more sublime his poem/answers.

The interview was conducted over the course of three days. Parts were recorded at Leonard's home and garden shed/workspace in Montreal, and others at a lodge in the wooded countryside not far from Montreal where the band rehearsed for the upcoming tour, and where I interviewed the back-up singers, and John Lissauer, who produced and arranged Leonard's _New Skin For The Old Ceremony_. He defined Leonard as "a man of opposites and conflicts and ambiguities... just vague enough to make the person he's with be very alive."

He was so alive and provocative in the following interview that soon after it was aired it triggered a debate in the Canadian Parliament about whether tax dollars should fund such salacious work, (as they had deemed it to be).

Despite Leonard's evasions during the interview, in an email he later called it "one of the... [only] conversations I ever really enjoyed". I treasured our interview from day one. So much so that, right after it was recorded I kept all the material in a bank safe. After a while I forgot that I had placed it there. Then one day I got a phone call from a friend who informed me that Leonard was depressed as hell because some of his notebooks containing the only drafts of his poems had been stolen from his car, or with his car, when he left the vehicle for a moment to buy a pack of cigarettes. As soon as I heard this, I remembered, contacted Leonard and told him I'd preserved some of these "lost" poems in a safe at my bank.

"Where would you like me to courier the cassettes containing the poems?" I asked him.

He lived in California at that time. He told me it must be my karma to preserve those poems, therefore he wished me to keep them. Every few months I'd remind him that I was still keeping his poems in my bank safe – and he'd say it was still my karma to keep them safe. The day he asked me to forward them to him I couriered them express. He included them on his album _Death Of A Ladies' Man_.

A friendship developed between us after the interview was completed. Well, actually, our feeling of kinship was ignited on the night that he and I and the back-up singers riffed on his newly recorded song, 'Lover Lover Lover', around his kitchen table. And it continued for over 40 years.

**BUT I FELL** in love with Leonard Cohen long before I dreamed that I'd ever meet him in person to interview him – let alone call him a friend. It was only a few years after a Canadian "carried me off to his country for marriage too soon," as Joni Mitchell put it. A teenage bride, flying for the first time away from the sensual heat of my hometown Tel Aviv, I landed in Canada in the dead of winter of all times. I had no idea how cold cold was until I deplaned in Montreal. My teeth clanked in shock as the cold froze every particle of moisture in my exposed skin, even the mucous in my nose, so it felt like the skin of my face would keep shrinking till it snapped apart. My tearful eyes misled me, I thought, when for the first time in my life I saw snow. It was not at all like the pristine white, feathery light loveliness I knew from the movies and books. In my first real-life encounter with snow it was a brown slush that ruined my brand new specially-purchased-to-impress-my-new-Canadian-family elegant high heel suede pumps that my parents could ill afford, and which turned my toes to icicles.

But what iced the heart was exile. Nothing prepared me for that. Yes, exiling Jews has been practised by world rulers – and even by God – for more than 2000 years. And it was a major topic of study in my school, teacher's college, the youth movement and at home as well. But in all these spheres it was imparted and illuminated by the sublime poetry of the biblical prophets, the great 14th century poets like Yehuda Ha'levi, and in the 20th century by the likes of our national poet Haim Nachman Bialik. And by the unique art of Chagall and Verdi's _Nabucco_ as well. All had lent Exile an element of divine beauty.

With Malka Marom in Montreal, 1974. Malka Marom

It was a hell of a trauma to be catapulted into an exile devoid of any semblance of any redeeming element, an exile in which I existed in a sort of whiteout that obliterated all landmarks of home and identity, gagged my voice and emptied meaning from words. In Hebrew a single word could press a thousand buttons, but in English – how could a word press any buttons for me who had studied English classics like _Hamlet_ not in the English original, but in the Hebrew translation?

The crack in the whiteout happened late in December 1961. Terribly homesick I went to the only place in Toronto that reminded me somewhat of home. Britnell's bookstore, like the Bialik Library in Tel Aviv, was beautifully appointed with floor-to-ceiling books encased in rich wood, and even had an elegant sliding ladder. As I walked in I noticed a rather slim book titled _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ and right away I could almost smell the fragrance of cloves and myrtle twigs inside the ornate spice box that my father used in the Havdalah, the ritual that defines the boundaries between the holy Shabbat and the everyday. It was the only time in my life that I purchased a book not for "what's between the covers", and not even for the cover or its author, but for its title. Only after I opened the book and read a few poems did my eyes run over to the poet's name. They popped wide in astonishment when they found that its author, Leonard Cohen, was a Canadian poet.

A Canadian?!

Canada must be a much better place than I knew it to be if Leonard Cohen was born and raised in it, writing there such brilliant poems, courting God-Woman, enticing Him-Her to a dialogue with the seer-poet.

_As the mist leaves no scar/ On the dark green hill,/ So my body leaves no scar/ On you, nor ever will_.

**SLOWLY, SLOWLY, I** savoured every verse of every poem, like a drought-plagued desert nomad savours first drops of water. Slowly, slowly, in awe and wonder I read and re-read each verse – kept that book on my night table even after the covers frayed. It didn't surprise me to find out that Leonard Cohen was celebrated in the Canadian media as the best young poet in English Canada. Some literary critics likened him to the Romantic poet Lord Byron. But to me he was more like the wise biblical poet King Solomon: his _Spice-Box Of Earth_ was a modern _Song Of Songs_. As in King Solomon's _Song Of Songs_ , in _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ love is divine, ugliness is transformed into beauty, religion encompasses the sacred and the profane, the amorous and the social, the celestial sphere as well as physical nature and the poetic spheres. All conveyed in a tone that contains an element of bat kol, divine voice. And so to me those poems were like prayers – and prayers answered.

They inspired me to sing the modern Hebrew songs that were composed with verses from the biblical _Song Of Songs_ , as well as all the other songs I had loved back home. I'd sing only when I was alone, only a verse or two of one song, then I'd try a verse of another song, and yet another, hoping that in the next song, the next try, my voice would return to life. It died imperceptibly while in exile, demeaned for being different, foreign, a "Greenie" speaking English in a foreign accent. My voice wouldn't come to life until I met a fellow Israeli, the great guitarist Eli Kassner. I'd sing to his accompaniment at his basement studio week after week, month after month for nearly two years. And then one night we went out to a hole in a Yorkville basement where immigrants gathered after hours to sing and play their native music; among them a wonderful classically trained singer from Croatia, Joso Spralja.

I believed it was due to the inspiration sparked by Leonard Cohen's poems that we were able to form the singing duo Malka & Joso. And in years to come we would be regarded as a major force in changing the perception of immigrants to Canada, illustrating that we were not aliens but importers of vitality, hope, daring, ancient and avant-garde sophistication, humour and culture.

By 1966 – a year before the first of Leonard Cohen's albums, _Songs Of Leonard Cohen_ , came out – Malka & Joso, singing in 14 languages, had recorded three bestselling LPs under the Capitol Canada label. Our national and international success lasted only for the proverbial 15 minutes. Still, at the time it was a very big deal when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the official face and voice of English Canada, programmed a new weekly show: _A World Of Music_ , starring Malka & Joso, which aired coast-to-coast in the dream broadcasting slot – following the hockey game on Saturday night. It was the first time that world music ("ethnic music" it was called, then) was accorded such prominent recognition in English Canada after years, decades really, of being relegated to basements, as if there were something subversive about it.

When Joso and I dissolved our singing partnership, I continued as a soloist performing on stage, TV and radio around the world, and when circumstances of life demanded I stay close to home, I sang mostly in Toronto and started to work as a broadcast journalist on the lowest rung – a gofer.

In 1974, thirteen years after Leonard's _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ inspired me to recover my voice, to speak and sing out for the voiceless, I'd climbed a few rungs as a broadcast journalist and I gathered the courage to phone Leonard Cohen and request an interview to be broadcast on the CBC. Graciously, he complimented my interview with Joni Mitchell, which he'd heard earlier that year on that same CBC Radio program, then he invited me to conduct the interview at his home in Montreal. When he welcomed me at his front door, I was so awed and overwhelmed by his presence, my mind couldn't articulate what my heart was dying to convey to him: that I owed my career to him, and that, like all in my native land, I'll forever be grateful to him and admire his extraordinary heroic service to my native Israel the year before.

That service was recognised and highly lauded in Israel, especially by those who had witnessed it in person – two of my close friends among them. Yet strangely it was one of the best kept secrets about Leonard Cohen in Canada. His suntan, however, betrayed it when he greeted me. The sun had been baked so deep that it looked as though it had been just a week ago, and not nearly a year, since he had been exposed to the broiling sun of the Sinai desert and the bloody horror of the Yom Kippur war. So many were killed in the '73 war, you couldn't see the water in the Suez Canal for the bodies floating there. But it's impossible to appreciate the full measure of Leonard Cohen's part without putting it in context. Briefly: In 1973, on the Day Of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the holiest of the Jewish holy days and the only day of the year when nearly all the Jews in the country are praying in their respective synagogues, the combined armies and air forces of Egypt and Syria launched a surprise, powerful blitz attack on Israel. By the time the Israeli Jews rushed out of the prayer houses to take defensive action, the Arab armed forces had devastated most of Israel's air force and ground defence positions, as well as vital supply routes to civilians and the military alike. The Jewish State was on the verge of annihilation, yet now, of all times, as if determined to hammer the last nail into Israel's coffin, all the countries of the world bar none denied assistance to Israel in any form, not even the right to fly over their air space to ferry vital medical supplies.

It was at that moment, when echoes of the Holocaust reverberated all too loudly, that Leonard Cohen left his family and his work to lend a helping hand in Israel by working in a kibbutz, an agricultural commune. On his way he was recognised by an Israeli singer, who tried to persuade Leonard Cohen to join him and a few other musicians about to perform at an air force base.

"Listen, my songs are sad," Leonard said in response.

"It's going to be okay," the Israeli singer assured him, and so Cohen agreed.

To introduce him, they simply announced, "We have a very special guest: Leonard Cohen."

From that night Leonard Cohen continued to attach himself to that small air force entertainment group and as Oshik Levi, one of his fellow singers, recounted, "In the morning we'd perform to paratroopers who afterwards boarded the planes heading towards Suez... At evening time they would return wounded or dead. There were not enough stretchers to carry the wounded when we performed in a hospital in Port Said."

After they were flown to the Sinai desert, the musicians and singers in that small group were dropped "into little places," Leonard told _Zig Zag UK_ , "like a rocket site manned by six or eight men, and they would shine their flashlights at the musicians, and they would sing a few songs. Or some officer would give us a jeep, and we would go down the road towards the front and whenever we saw a few soldiers waiting for a helicopter or something we would sing a few songs."

1974. Getty

And according to Levi, "Leonard Cohen proceeded with us for three months, day after day, four to five and sometimes eight or ten performances a day in very difficult and dangerous condtions. It was physically and emotionally exhausting. We would sleep in sleeping bags on the ground, and Leonard, who didn't want to feel like a star, refused when I tried to arrange a place for him in the [communal] culture room." "I didn't suffer enough. I didn't lose anyone I knew," Leonard Cohen told Robin Pike, knowing that there was hardly an Israeli Jew who didn't suffer the loss of someone he or she knew and loved during that war.

But the fact that Cohen, unlike almost everyone in the world outside Israel, risked his life to lend his support to the beleaguered Jewish State told so much of Leonard Cohen the man – especially to Israelis of my generation. I doubt there are people on this earth who love Leonard Cohen more than Israelis of all ages do – and not only because of his visible support during the war of '73, of course.

On the first album he recorded after that Yom Kippur war, _New Skin For The Old Ceremony_ , Leonard Cohen included the song 'Who By Fire', which echoes the words and melody of the Yom Kippur prayer Unetanneh Tokef; the song itself, in turn, became a prayer. This album also included 'Lover Lover Lover', which he composed during the Yom Kippur war.

_And who by fire, who by water_ ,

_Who in the sunshine, who in the night time_ ,

_Who by high ordeal, who by common trial_ ,

_Who in your merry merry month of May_ ,

_Who by very slow decay_ ,

_And who shall I say is calling?_

_And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate_ ,

_Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt_ ,

_And who by avalanche, who by powder_ ,

_Who for his greed, who for his hunger_ ,

_And who shall I say is calling?_

_And who by brave assent, who by accident_ ,

_Who in solitude, who in this mirror_ ,

_Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand_ ,

_Who in mortal chains, who in power_ ,

_And who shall I say is calling?_

'Who By Fire'

**THE NEXT TIME** I found myself at his door, I was no longer a stranger to Leonard, but a friend invited for dinner at his home in Montreal. The same modest house where I interviewed him in the summer of 1974 stood in such a nondescript street, the cab also got lost this time trying to locate the address. Instead of Suzanne, I saw an amazing looking elderly fellow, sitting cross-legged on his chair by the small wooden table, as if a halo was glowing around him.

"Wow, how radiant this elder," I whispered to Leonard.

"He's my teacher, Roshi," Leonard said.

So I turned to Roshi: "Pleased to meet you, how fortunate you are to have Leonard for a student, and Leonard to have you..."

Leonard interrupted with that grin of his that I love. "Roshi doesn't understand a word of English."

"Well, he's so luminous, I guess he somehow radiates his teachings to you."

"Yeah, but you know, he can't get it up. Would you get it up for him, would you?" Leonard asked me, only half in jest, or so it seemed.

So I half laughed, then said, "Don't tell me it's part of your homework to pimp for your teacher; besides, why would you choose a teacher who can't get it up?"

"I have one teacher who can't get it down, and this one who can't get it up," Leonard replied, cracking us both up. No one, except for Leonard, perhaps, was reputed to be "the womaniser" in Canada's artistic community more than Leonard's teacher, the poet Irving Layton.

A fiery charismatic personality and a celebrity in Canada, Irving Layton was Leonard's mentor, as well as teacher and father figure. According to the many poets I interviewed for a profile I prepared of Irving Layton and his poetry, Layton inspired Canadian poets – especially of Leonard's generation – to venture outside the box, to soar free of all constraints. But, yes, Irving Layton's reputation of being a womaniser was well earned, I discovered in the late '70s. Recently separated from his common-law wife Aviva, Irving, my neighbour at that time, asked me if he could stay at my house for a couple of nights until he found an apartment to rent.

He stayed for three months – almost like _The Man Who Came To Dinner_. Every morning he'd come down to the kitchen and boast that overnight he had composed the greatest poem written since the "Great William Shakespeare". And every afternoon and evening a different woman, young enough to be his granddaughter, would skip up the stairs leading to "his room", as I came to refer to it. (He married one of those women in 1980 and had a daughter with her.)

Leonard came over to my house during Irving Layton's stay at my home. He was anxious to hear Irving's opinion of his brand new, yet-to-be-released, _Recent Songs_. I placed Leonard's demo-record on my turntable and jacked the volume to high, knowing Irving was hard of hearing. Leonard sat cross-legged on the floor, literally at Irving's feet, his eyes closed. Fortunately, I took my place on the sofa by Irving's side and so, whenever Irving would nod off, I'd jab him gently to stop him from snoring. Leonard seemed to be unaware of it. As the record came to an end I elbowed Irving – not so gently this time. It startled him but he woke up and when he saw Leonard, still sitting at his feet and turning an inquiring look at him, he expounded at length in his unique magnificent eloquence on this new album – as if he hadn't slept through it. Starting with something like: "Bravo, Leonard! How masterfully you led us from Sinai to Auschwitz in this brilliant album..."

"Yeah? Yeah?" Leonard's eyes would pop wide with surprise and delight after each of Irving's pronouncements and accolades, like a child eager for his father's praise. It was a very beautiful moment, loving, intimate, and without a trace of irony for once.

I wonder if Irving's "Sinai to Auschwitz" remark inspired Leonard to compose his song, 'Dance Me To The End Of Love', which was inspired by the string quartets forced to perform while the crematoria did their deadly work and the musicians themselves awaited their own terrible fates.

Years later, when Irving suffered the slow devastating deterioration caused by dementia or Alzheimer's, Leonard paid the cost of his care till the day he died – as he did for Roshi's care. He also donated large sums to promote Roshi's teaching. (Sums much too large, Suzanne told me in 1977 – they chewed too much out of the family's budget. Roshi was taking advantage of Leonard's generosity, she maintained.)

But Leonard's devotion to his teachers, like his writing, was deeply rooted in his parents' and grandparents' culture, I believe. Learning is a worshipping of God; in the Jewish tradition learning also leads to humility, to understanding that you don't know it all. And though Leonard was not the Talmudic scholar his grandparents were, he did read parts of the Talmud and so he was bound to know that even the greatest of the sages are referred to quite often as students. And that, according to the Mishna, one's father prepares you for this world, whereas your teacher prepares you for the next one; the honour you accord your teacher is higher than to your parents. And the greatest teacher of all is God.

_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?_

'To A Teacher'

**WAS IT LEONARD'S** urge for learning that led him to Phil Spector? During the time that Leonard was recording a few songs with Spector as producer I happened to be in Los Angeles. And so, I accepted Leonard's invitation to attend their next recording session, no questions asked. The only thing I knew about Phil Spector at the time was that he invented a "wall of sound". Just that term made me worry that a wall of sound would entomb the soul of Leonard's lyrics. But trusting that Leonard cared for his lyrics more than I did, I made my way to the control room. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, I was horrified to see a crazy-looking guy sitting at a consul that dwarfed him, downing one bottle after another of Manishewitz wine while yelling, "Take it again!" and twirling a .45 pistol in Leonard's direction, mine, the musicians', the singers', the engineer's... And just as appalling, if not as frightening, was the sight of that inebriated, trigger-happy lunatic treating Leonard like shit but treating Bob Dylan (who had been invited to sing back-up that night) like a king. Both Dylan and Leonard, however, treated this dangerous madman as if he were a sort of deity.

I was shocked to find, when Leonard introduced us, that this tyrannical, pistol-wielding, deranged drunk was Phil Spector.

After that recording session Leonard asked me to attend the next, explaining that Phil Spector was afraid of me because he thought I was an Israeli soldier. I put on a brave face, but I doubt there's an Israeli soldier who was ever as fearful as I was during those recording sessions.

"Why are you subjecting yourself to this vile, dangerous producer?" I asked Leonard.

"Isn't evil fascinating?" he replied.

Despite his glib reply, I think Leonard hoped Phil Spector would expand the audience for his songs. In those pre-'Hallelujah' fame years, it disturbed him that the audience for his songs was not as large as he would have liked it to be, especially in the US. He bemoaned the relatively small size of his audience in our 1974 interview – "compared to the Rolling Stones," he said. That's how huge an audience he wished his songs had. "I've been trying to interest the masses in my vision for a long time," he told me in our interview. I don't know if he consulted any of the Rolling Stones on how to increase his audience to "masses" proportion, but I do know that he reached Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan for advice on it.

Dylan was one of the few who considered Leonard's music to be as genius as his lyrics. He certainly considered Leonard to be a better musician than Leonard believed himself to be. Even so, Leonard and Dylan couldn't talk whenever the two of them were alone, Leonard told me – when he asked me to invite him and Dylan to dinner at the A-Frame I was staying in during that visit to California. I invited them for a Friday night dinner. In keeping with the tradition of my family, I prettied up the A-Frame for Shabbat. Not that it needed much, as it had been decorated beautifully in that simple yet very expensive vintage '60s country-style furniture with Native American pottery, baskets, wall hangings and carpets. It just needed fresh flowers, candles, candlesticks and a white Shabbat tablecloth to cover the harvest-style wooden table and chairs, which took up most of the space downstairs. Once I'd said the blessing and served the food, they were too busy – talking, laughing, gossiping, drinking and smoking – to eat. They clearly enjoyed each other's company and respected each other immensely.

After Dylan left the dinner table – to work on editing his movie _Renaldo And Clara_ – Leonard told me that Dylan wouldn't be able to write anymore if he continued to live at his huge mansion. (The living-room alone at that mansion was so large a horse could, and did, trot through it.)

Looking back on it with the distance of years, I wonder if Leonard chose to live in modest abodes through most of his working life because he believed it was good for his writing to live humbly. Was it this distrust of wealth that caused him, subconsciously perhaps, to be "taken by charlatans" as he put it in my interview with him?

He certainly preferred a bare room to a cluttered room (but, as Dolly Parton likes to joke, "it costs a lot of money to look this cheap"). He was seeking truth before comfort. A troubadour of privation, he seemed to have gone out of his way to make his life difficult, whether choosing to live in physically punishing conditions or emotionally entangling himself in one destructive relationship after another. Striving for abnegation became a sort of a defining trademark – almost as if to nail his lofty intellectual gifts to the most dire human conditions, thus inspiring in his readers and listeners universal love and compassion.

_Well, you know I have my songs and I have my poems_.

_I have my books... 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_.

'Please Don't Pass Me By'

**ONCE, WHEN I** was with the hunted and in dire need of shelter, I experienced that compassion. It was early dawn and the sun had yet to lift the sky when I phoned Leonard for help.

As soon as Leonard heard me out, he invited me to stay at the house that he and Suzanne rented in Los Angeles at that time. It was not in the parts of the city inhabited by music or movie stars, or an 'in' place like Laurel Canyon. And unlike his Montreal house, this one was not in a working-class part of the city, but in a lower middle-class pocket of an upper middle-class neighbourhood – and decorated in California pastels, pastel flowers even blooming on the sofa. It was strange to see Leonard in that rented house, almost as strange as seeing him perform on stage wearing a pink pastel suit instead of his preferred black. Here, like in Montreal, there were no security guards, no bodyguards, no paparazzi, no trappings of fame.

Leonard and Suzanne's children were little then – Adam was four and Lorca three – and, although they had a live-in nanny, when Suzanne flew to India Leonard stayed to look after them. He was an exceptionally devoted father, really wonderful with his children. (Years later, when son Adam got injured quite badly in a motorcycle accident, Leonard flew to be by his side during months of convalescence at a rehabilitation hospital in Toronto.) I never heard him complain about or castigate his little ones for disturbing him at work, as they did quite often. And he always addressed them in his normal adult voice, not in that high-pitched baby-talking voice, which many of us employ when talking to little ones.

After they fell asleep, he'd work for hours. Composing poems or lyrics was sacred work to him. He'd write and rewrite a poem a thousand times, if not more, "because I don't have a sense of a compelling inner vision I can locate... I have to go beneath my opinions," Leonard said to the _Globe_ and _Mail_. His opinions were predictable, as were his beliefs, Leonard added, "So I need to write a lot to avoid the opinion, the belief, or the slogan, and to come up with the freshness that determines the living quality of a piece of work."

"Leonard writes songs from moments of inspiration... He's very, very sensitive and he also is very careful to keep things contained, and to keep them on a poetic level," John Lissauer told me, during a break in rehearsals for Leonard's promotional tour of his album _New Skin For The Old Ceremony_.

But Leonard wrote even letters and emails in moments of inspiration, judging by the many he sent me over the decades – each one was sort of like a haiku: brief, wise and witty. There was a celebration in my heart when I'd read it and for days after. "May the world limp toward a healing, dear Malka," he wrote one New Year's Eve. "Love and blessings, Eliezer." He often signed in his Hebrew name and added the Cohen – high priest – blessing in Hebrew.

In person, his words sparkled like little gems when you least expected them. For example, imagine my surprise when I walked onto an airplane in Paris and found Leonard on the same flight heading to Canada.

"How are you?" he asked me.

"My heart is broken," I replied.

"Everyone on this flight has a broken heart," Leonard responded. And with his words I could almost see a light coming through the cracks.

Leonard was obsessed with the notion of brokenness – and its redemption. " _There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in_ ," he sings in his song 'Anthem', and in 'Hallelujah', " _There's a blaze of light/ In every word/ It doesn't matter which you heard/ the holy or the broken Hallelujah_". He had the courage to see God's broken world, and still had it in his heart to praise both it and its creator.

Amsterdam, 1972. Gjisbert Hanekroot / Getty

And the courage to keep an eye open for the righteous ones who were destined to make whole the shattered slivers of the Shechina – the Divine spirit, and God's world as well. Or so it seemed when, yet again, Leonard left everyone and everything to be in Israel during yet another war, the Lebanon war, or the Second Lebanon war, as it was called. When he met my mother in Tel Aviv he believed her to be one of the Lamed Vav, the 36 humble righteous people whose role in life is to make whole the shattered Shechina and God's world and to justify the purpose of humankind in the eyes of God. None of the Lamed Vav know that they are of the 36.

I didn't expect to hear it from Leonard, even though we, in our immediate family, nicknamed my mother Tzedekes – a righteous one – for decades before Leonard met her. I hadn't mentioned this to him before he met my mother.

Frankly I was hesitant to invite him to my parents' apartment. It was a huge upgrade from my childhood home, but you could spin dizzy from the pattern of the wallpaper that covered every wall in that apartment, not to mention the clashing patterns of the equally lively upholstered sofas and chairs. Leonard preferred sparse, simple, almost monastic interior spaces, I knew. He was too sensitive for such lively stuff, I thought; he'd get a headache in that apartment even if he wore sunglasses indoors. Still, I thought he'd like to meet my parents, a pair of fiery idealists of the generation that devoted their very being to the creation of the modern State of Israel and who were dying off all too fast now. Besides, I was staying at their place at that time; so I invited him over for a glass of wine.

To my surprise he didn't seem to notice the blinding wallpaper, or upholstery, or anything in that apartment, he was so taken by my mother from the moment he met her.

She was in her 80s then, her knees worn out, and didn't speak English and Leonard didn't speak Hebrew or Yiddish, or Polish or German.

"Meet Leonard Cohen, one of the greatest poets of our era, the Leonard Cohen who sang for our beleaguered troops in the Yom Kippur war," I said to my mother in Hebrew.

"Shalom, Shalom," she muttered, "Kol ha'kavod – all honour to you." Seeing him through her eyes I could barely stop myself from cracking up. She perceived him as she did the emaciated homeless refugees she sort of adopted when I was a child. With a slight motion of her hand she urged him to follow her to her kitchen, a tiny space, in which you had to walk sideways to get past the narrow table. From under that table she pulled out one of the rickety small stools. "Sit, sit," she told Leonard in Hebrew, then she proceeded to heap on that narrowest of tables, her sumptuous eggplant dish, stuffed zucchini, Gefilte fish, fricassee chicken, Kasha, honey cake and tea – all of which he tasted, even downing a glass of the lethal 777 brandy that she served him. "Drink it up... Eat, eat," she demanded. Not unlike him whenever he invited me to his place for dinner: he'd empty his fridge and pantry to heap all he had onto his dinner table.

"Thank you, but this is too much," Leonard protested in English.

"He's not a big eater," I whispered to her in Hebrew.

"You've got to eat," she told him in Hebrew, "you must eat, your body is too thin, you've been starved, your stomach shrank..." She pulled out another stool for herself, sat by his side and just stared at him.

He stared back at her.

They laughed.

She nodded her head in approval when he started to eat. "Good, very good," she muttered, then left the apartment to take a bite to the prostitutes who stationed themselves regularly on the sidewalk below her apartment building on Ben Yehuda Street, just north of Nordau Boulevard.

The next day he came over and again wouldn't take his eyes off my mother.

They laughed almost like lovers who shared a secret. "Eat eat," she'd urge him. After a few days of the same, nothing more, Leonard told me, "I believe your mother is of the Lamed Vav." And for once his mouth didn't curl in that ironic twist I loved.

What led him to perceive my mother in such a hallowed light, I asked him?

"She's of the Lamed Vav," he replied.

Over the years I came to see a sacred core in Leonard, not only pertaining to his writing, but to the man himself, his heart, his soul. I asked him to pray for my sister Yehudit when she was diagnosed with cancer so pervasive her doctors advised her that statistically she had only four months to live, at best, when she was only 55 years old. She was granted the gift of life for four additional good months – due in part to Leonard's prayers, I'm sure.

Ever since I first encountered his work in _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ , Leonard's songs and poems have always been, and will always be, prayers to me. 'If It Be Your Will' should be included in future prayer books of all religions, I believe. Already his 'Hallelujah' is sung in synagogues the world over. It's not a coincidence, I'm certain, that in his younger years Leonard composed _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ – a contemporary take on the young King Solomon's _Song Of Songs_ , and that in his later mature years he wrote _Book Of Mercy_ – a modern version of the mature King David's _Psalms_.

**TWO YEARS EXACTLY** before the day he died, Leonard sent me an email saying, "The old vehicle has sprung a few leaks. In and out of the shop these days." I knew he meant in and out of the hospital, but he'd get well sooner rather than later, I believed.

Yet another warning came in an email from him on July 22, 2015, hinting at personal and medical emergencies. But still he made it to his keyboard; still he fought for beauty. "Full battle dress for now," he wrote.

Leonard attached a photo in which it seemed he was receiving the same treatment as my sister Yehudit had received in the last months of her life, so it gave me a hell of a jolt. And yet Leonard looked so dapper and elegant in that photo, even sporting a perfectly trimmed goatee and a jauntily angled hat. When you added his dark sunglasses, he looked like the super-famous pop star out on the town.

As I mentioned before, Leonard often signed his emails to me by his Hebrew name: Eliezer, which translated literally means "my God provides help". I hoped that this would prove true. And I clung to his promise that when this was over "we'll have that drink".

But when I turned on his last record and heard him sing, "Hineni" – here I am – accompanied by the cantorial choir of the synagogue that his ancestors had founded in Montreal, I knew he was declaring, "Hineni, hinenie": I'm ready, my Lord.

Even now that he is gone, Leonard is still – and always will be – a vibrant presence in my life. Even after his many beautiful parting songs, the notion that he would take his leave for real, and forever, from this earthly world at least, remains unthinkable.

The whole world grieved over him and eulogised him effusively. Scholars and non-scholars alike are sure to examine every word, comma, verse and note of Leonard's compositions and attest to Leonard's sublime greatness in countless books. But to me – even though his writing changed my life, his poems and songs inspired and enriched my being – he was a most beloved friend of more than 40 years. A friend who, in our younger years, would invite me to have dinner with him in New York and, after a quick flight from Toronto, we'd be sipping wine together, laughing and laughing. A friend who offered me shelter at a most bizarre time of our lives. A friend who I believe was one of the 36 humble, righteous people whose role in life is to collect the broken shattered slivers of our world and justify the purpose of humankind in the eyes of God.

Thank you, beloved Leonard, for illuminating the glint of hope in everything.

I'll forever be grateful to destiny for bringing Leonard Cohen into my life. And for according me the privilege of sharing with you, dear readers, his sublime lyrics in this book.

Leonard Cohen, the flesh and blood man, the most beautiful of humans, is lost to us now, but his wisdom and wonder, his questions and answers live on in his poems and songs – these prayers for us mortals to taste the divine.

_Like a bird on the wire_ ,

_Like a drunk in a midnight choir_

_I have tried in my way to be free_.

'Bird On The Wire'

MALKA MAROM, 2017

Hamburg, 1974. Hans-Jurgen Dibbert / Getty
**In The Shed**

* * *

"CONSPIRACY AGAINST LOVERS"

**MALKA MAROM:** Now that you're almost forty years old, would you write a graffiti like the one you wrote when you were nearly thirty: " _Marita/ Please find me/ I am almost thirty_ "?

**LEONARD COHEN:** That's a good question. No, I'm not involved anymore in prayerful worship, I mean I don't pray that way any longer.

**MM:** Was this a prayer?

**LC:** Well, it was an expression of longing.

_Myself I long for love and light_ ,

_But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?_

'Joan Of Arc'

**MM:** You started as a poet, very successful and highly acclaimed from the start. When your first book of poems, _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ came out, a major critic deemed you "the best young poet in English Canada". Why did you switch from poetry to music, to singing?

**LC:** Why did I start singing professionally, or why did I lift up my voice one day?

**MM:** Both.

**LC:** Well, I never thought of why. I thought there were a number of things I knew how to do in the world. And one of them was I played guitar and sang, so I thought I'd look into that.

**MM:** When was that?

**LC:** The first time, I guess, I was on the stage as a professional musician or a singer, it was 1954. I was part of a group called the Buckskin Boys. It was a barn dance group. We went around the outskirts of Montreal and played barn dances for small communities and high schools. There were three of us. And then the years went by and I thought I was a writer for a long time, so I wrote a few books. And during the last book, I used to listen to the radio a lot and I had started listening very carefully to singers on records and on the radio, just listening to their voices, and I thought that was an interesting kind of effort, which was very close to the writing effort. They always talked about a person's voice in poetry, and the music of prose or verse. And it was a short step to actually be concerned with the voice and with the music. And so I made the transition very painlessly.

**MM:** Did you study music?

**LC:** Yes. I took piano lessons from Miss McDougall when I was six or seven.

**MM:** And you continued...

**LC:** Yes. Well, not with Miss McDougall.

**MM:** [Laughs] You used to listen to the radio quite a lot, you said; did it influence your music in any way? Or perhaps I should ask: in what way did it influence your music?

**LC:** I have the impression that everything I've ever heard is an influence. Everything I've ever hated is an influence. Everything I've ever embraced is an influence. And I hear all those things in the work and it sometimes does drive me up the wall to hear them in my own work.

**MM:** I could hear, for instance, Jacques Brel in some of your songs.

**LC:** Well, I definitely owe something to Jacques Brel if I haven't actually stolen the entire melody line from him. I'm not sure. I'm sure I'm going to put on one of his records one day and find that the exact same song is there and that I've just lifted it line by line. Of course, one is unaware of these things when you're actually writing the song.

I remember the first song I ever wrote, I wrote in collaboration with a boy named Jack Boyko. We were counsellors together at a children's camp about twenty years ago. And we used to drink together in the evenings at this little café in St. Margaret where there was a jukebox. And we were working on this song and we worked on it for a couple of weeks and we were very, very proud of it. We were singing it to each other and we were thinking of fame and fortune and sending it to publishers and getting people to record it. We were sitting in this little café one night and somebody put a dime in the jukebox and this entire song came out. It was exactly the same song that we had written. Of course, we'd been listening to it over and over.

And I remember once when I was down in Nashville and Kris Kristofferson said to me that he loved 'Bird On The Wire' and, as a matter of fact, he said that he wants to use that as his epitaph, the first four or five lines of 'Bird On The Wire'. He said he met a guy, a songwriter in Nashville, who was really angry at me. He said that I lifted the first few phrases melodically from a song that he wrote. And he said, "Of course you wouldn't know this song. It's a country and western song, you don't know that tradition." And he said it's this song [sings] _da da da da da_ – "for my mommy and daddy are callin'". And, of course, it's one of my favourite country and western songs. It's one that I've known my whole life and I probably did lift the whole thing from it, so...

I know that there's a moment or two in my reading of a song called 'Is This What You Wanted' where I hear almost every singer that I've ever heard. I hear just moments, you know, of things that I've just lifted right from their vocabulary.

_And is this what you wanted_

_To live in a house that is haunted_

_By the ghost of you and me?_

_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_

_And is this what you wanted..._

'Is This What You Wanted'

**MM:** The transition from writing poetry and prose to writing songs and singing was "very painless" you said, still, didn't you find it strange? I mean, writing is solitary; music is communal.

**LC:** I don't remember what it was like to be a writer, I mean, to be a novelist because I haven't written... yes, of course, I did last winter. I do remember locking myself [away] for three to four hours every day. But to tell you the truth, so many voices crowded in my head and I feel I live so close to people that even if I do happen to lock myself in a room for three or four hours a day to write prose, I never get a feeling that it's solitary, that I lost anything. And, similarly, even if I am with a band playing with a lot of musicians, and two girls beside me, and four men with instruments behind me, I never really get the feeling that I've lost anything solitary or individual. It seems to be about the same whatever you do.

**MM:** What are those "many voices crowded" in your head?

**LC:** The voices in my head, they don't care what I do. They just want to argue the matter through and through.

**MM:** Oh, that's too good. [Laughs] Did you imagine yourself a poet or a singer when you were a child, let's say, six years old?

**LC:** Six years old, no. I don't think I cared one way or another. I think I probably feel somewhat the way I do now as I did then. I don't think about those things very much, just in terms of what I'll be that way. It's more like the quality of the interior activity of the job you happen to be doing.

I didn't think about it when I was six. I don't think about it now, but between thirteen and thirty I thought a lot about it.

_Because of a few songs_

_Wherein I spoke of their mystery_ ,

_Women have been_

_Exceptionally kind..._

'Because Of'

**MM:** Was it to get laid? Or? What led you, or influenced you, to become a poet?

**LC:** I remember my friend and teacher, Irving Layton, saying there were two qualities that are essential for a young writer. Those two qualities are arrogance and inexperience. And I possess both those qualities in abundance.

**MM:** [Laughs] Poets are born out of poverty and impoverishment. Or so it's been portrayed through the ages.

**LC:** It's true. But we also know that sense of poverty has nothing to do with the material conditions of a man's life. You know, I hate these uncharitable attitudes toward the middle-class from which I have emerged. And I think it's time the middle-class stopped indulging in this orgy of self-criticism and self-hatred. Most of us come from the middle-classes. All classes today try to emulate the middle-classes. And the middle-classes are capable of producing all kinds of excellence and nobility, along with all the other products. And... that's all I have to say.

**MM:** That's a strange sort of a full stop. [Laughs] Did you read the book _Portnoy's Complaint_?

**LC:** No, I find that kind of writing extremely distasteful.

**MM:** How do you know it's "extremely distasteful" if you didn't read it?

**LC:** I can tell. The book exudes a certain quality that I can sense, that I can taste. I find it vulgar and middle class.

**MM:** You just said there's nothing wrong in middle class. [Laughs]

**LC:** No. I take it all back. That embodies the worst... No, I don't like that kind of writing. I've read snatches of that sort of thing and I've read snatches of his work.

I'm not interested in publicly condemning John Updike... not John Updike, but Philip Roth. But I find that kind of writing very uninteresting.

**MM:** Well, I brought it up simply because–

**LC:** Besides from what I can read of it, there are certain stylistic devices that were stolen from [my novel] _Beautiful Losers_. I remember that bothered me quite a bit too. Of course, nobody would understand this unless they had written _Beautiful Losers_. But I mean, I know when an idea passes to another writer because I've stolen a lot myself. And I feel that there's a certain tone, a certain energy, a certain channel of energy that he lifted out of _Beautiful Losers_ and I resent the book for that. There should have been at least a thank you.

**MM:** And you steal from yourself also sometimes, it seems, like how your 'Master Song' explores the theme of your novel _Beautiful Losers_.

_I believe that you heard your master sing_

_When I was sick in bed_.

_I suppose that he told you everything_

_That I keep locked away in my head_.

_Your master took you traveling_ ,

_Well at least that's what you said_.

_And now do you come back to bring_

_Your prisoner wine and bread?_

_You met him at some temple, where_

_They take your clothes at the door_.

_He was just a numberless man in a chair_

_Who'd 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 some time before_.

_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 word 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_.

_And 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_

_And, an ape with angel glands_ ,

_Erased the final wisps of pain_

_With the music of rubber bands_.

_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_.

_Oh now you hear your master sing_ ,

_Your shirt is all undone_.

_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_.

_No I can't make out what your master said_

_Before he made you go_.

_Then 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_

_To get used to an empty room_.

_And your love is some dust in an old man's cough_

_Who is tapping his foot to a tune_ ,

_And your thighs are a ruin, you want too much_ ,

_Let's say you came back some time too soon_.

_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'd do_.

_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_ ,

_And now do you come back to bring_

_Your prisoner wine and bread?_

'Master Song'

**MM:** Do you think the fact that both you and Philip Roth grew up in a minority environment–

**LC:** No, I didn't have at all the same kind of background as Philip Roth, from what I can gather. You know, he came of a certain kind of Jewish environment that I didn't come from at all. The Jewish environment that I came from was very, very different. First of all, it's Canadian and it's Montreal and my family wasn't at all like the average Jewish family that I find in literature. And if anybody's interested, they can find out what kind of Jewish family that was in a book I wrote called _The Favourite Game_. It's a different vision. It's not American.

**MM:** Do you think there is a big difference between Canada and the United States?

**LC:** I don't know whether there is or not. I think there probably is. People tell me there is. But... the part in my mind that examines these questions is about the kind of part of my mind that I devote to mosquitoes. You know, I think about it from time to time when they're around. I try to keep them off, but I don't really think about them when they're not around. It's only when people ask me these questions that I'm ever forced to think about the differences between America and Canada. I don't really think about those things.

**MM:** Some of the best Canadian writers today, Mordecai Richler, Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen are all from Montreal, Jewish background. Do you think it's a coincidence?

**LC:** Well, there are other fine writers from here, too, who aren't Jewish. There's Hugh MacLennan and there's Frank Scott...

You know, you can make a point about this sort of thing. I don't think it really serves any notion of accuracy to make too strong a point about it. There was a Jewish community here and it did produce some writers. Some of them are pretty good, some of them are average.

**MM:** I'd like to turn to something that you and I share in common: giving free concerts in mental wards from time to time. Is there a particular reason you chose the mental wards?

**LC:** Oh, I don't know. It satisfied my notion of virtue. I think the news will get around that I'm a virtuous sort of person.

**MM:** Why the mental wards, and not the old folks' homes, for example?

**LC:** I should really extend my virtuous activity. I hardly give these concerts any longer.

**MM:** "They were the only people who could understand my landscape," you said at one time.

**LC:** I gave all sorts of reasons for those kinds of activities. I was infected with the general notion of self-improvement, and I thought that just giving concerts for money was inconsistent with my own version of self-virtue, so I thought I would extend my charitable activities and I thought that this would be the most appropriate place to extend those activities.

**MM:** You are saying this in the past tense.

**LC:** Oh, yeah, I'm not going to do any more of that stuff. [Laughs]

**MM:** Why not?

**LC:** I don't know. Perhaps I will. Perhaps I will.

**MM:** You still didn't answer my question.

**LC:** What was the question?

**MM:** What put a stop to the preoccupation with expressing your virtues?

**LC:** Well, I am not attached to my virtues at this particular moment. I think after a couple of children and a few wives and general experience in the marketplace, you arrive at a more realistic vision of yourself and I don't think that these charitable activities are consistent now with my own version of myself. I'm much nastier than that, you see. I was lying when I was performing those virtuous activities. I don't feel like lying now. Really, I'm going on tour now for very professional and specific reasons. I really want to play this music for people and get paid for it.

**MM:** And yet I heard you say that you would like to cover Canada in the north because it was important for you and for the people.

**LC:** Yes, well, occasionally I lapse... I lapse into other frames of mind.

_I practiced all my sainthood_

_I gave to one and all_

_But the rumors of my virtue_

_They moved her not at all_

_I changed my style to silver_

_I changed my clothes to black_

_And where I would surrender_

_Now I would attack_

_I stormed the old casino_

_For the money and the flesh_

_And I myself decided_

_What was rotten and what was fresh_

'Came So Far For Beauty'

**LC:** Would you blow smoke at me, I've given up smoking...

**MM:** That's so difficult, terribly difficult for me to quit smoking, I tried countless times, only to fail countless times. I wonder, if it's not too intrusive, too personal, what prompted you to quit?

**LC:** It's part of this interminable interest in self-improvement. I think I will be more acceptable to myself if I give up smoking. [Inhales the smoke] Mmmm... thank you. Thank you very much.

**MM:** Is it also "part of this interminable interest in self-improvement" that you go to a monastery from time to time, delved in Scientology and astrology, and now you're studying Zen? May I ask, what are you looking for?

**LC:** Good company. I like fringe groups, and I like the kind of people that are attracted to somewhat dubious enterprises and activities, and adventures. It's recreation.

**MM:** Recreation? Most of these groups are also religious.

**LC:** Yes, religious fanatics I find are very good company.

**MM:** In what way?

**LC:** It's nothing I can go into very deeply. It's just... they seem to have very specific views, and they seem to be in a state of attractive nervousness all the time. And they are thin... A lot of them are very thin.

**MM:** Thin?

**LC:** They are highly strung.

**MM:** So are people who live in the bush.

**LC:** Yes, they are good too.

**MM:** So why do you choose the monastery, and not the bush in the far north?

**LC:** Well, I don't feel exclusive about the monastery. I'd like to get to the bush. Could you bring me up to the bush?

**MM:** [Laughs] Do you study Zen, Scientology or the Christian beliefs of the monastery you attend as religion or philosophy?

**LC:** No, entertainment.

**MM:** The Kabbalah also as entertainment?

**LC:** The Kabbalah... I don't feel like much of a student these days. I think I've let my studies slip a bit.

**MM:** So, did you go there as a voyeur?

**LC:** Yes, exactly... What do you mean "as a voyeur"?

**MM:** Well, if you don't go to study, do you go to experience it, or are you going as an onlooker?

**LC:** I don't have any high purpose in my activities. I'm just going, so that I don't have to keep still.

**MM:** One goes to a monastery to keep still, I thought. But... When you go to the monastery, do you feel any conflict with your being Jewish?

**LC:** No, I don't. I have no sense of conflict. My Jewish background is extremely hospitable to all kinds of investigation.

**M:** So you go there to investigate...

**LC:** Well, you are determined to picture me as some sort of seeker, so I'll have to get to that sort of frame of mind.

**MM:** But it was you who used the word "investigation". I'm just following up, certainly not determined to picture you as—

**LC:** No, but I feel as the evidence builds up, a certain kind of serious responsible seeker is being described and that isn't the way I am at all.

I just look into things here and there. If I described some of the other things I've looked into, you'd have to describe another name for [me]. But these things are easy to put your finger on.

It's like the famous story.

This man was complaining.

He said, "I built a thousand bridges, but do they call me a bridge builder? No."

He said, "I've written papers, do they call me a scholar? No."

He said, "I've gone through the woods, but do they call me a path finder? No."

He said, "But you suck one cock... and they call you..."

**MM:** [Laughs]

**LC:** I mean, there is a great deal of interest in self-improvement, and the whole spiritual seeking and adventuring seems to have a great deal of publicity these days, so that if you do one or two things on that scale, people want to characterise you as a spiritual kind of person.

**MM:** What are the other interests that you have pursued – [are] pursuing?

**LC:** I'm also very interested in food. I like cooking. And there are a whole range of interests that don't have the kind of prestige that spiritual enterprises have today. So interviews have tended to overemphasize the spiritual aspect of my nature, which I'm hardly aware of. I've just looked into a few things, but without any special emphasis on religion.

**MM:** Maybe it's because quite a few of your poems and songs are so spiritual, almost prayers – well, prayers, really, I think – and quite a lot use religious images.

**LC:** Yes, that's just because the only mythology I was presented with as I grew up was a religious mythology. But you know, we talk of the flood and we speak of the ark, and Noah and the dove – all those are symbols and allegories that have entered our consciousness and language through religious channels, but they don't necessarily extend for religious experience today. They stand for an experience that includes religion, but does not exclude other kinds of experience. That was the mythology that I inherited so I use it for all experiences, not specifically for religious [ones].

_I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived;_

_Bethlehem the bridegroom_ ,

_Babylon the bride_.

_Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me_ ,

_And Bethlehem inflamed us both_

_Like the shy one at some orgy_.

_And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil_

_That I had to draw aside to see_

_The serpent eat its tail_.

_Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain_

_So I hang upon my altar_

_And I hoist my axe again_.

_And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began_

_When Jesus was the honeymoon_

_And Cain was just the man_.

_And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin_

_That the wilderness is gathering_

_All its children back again_.

'Last Year's Man'

_You who build these altars now_

_To sacrifice these children_ ,

_You must not do it anymore_.

_A scheme is not a vision_

_And you never have been tempted_

_By a demon or a god_.

_You who stand above them now_ ,

_Your hatchets blunt and bloody_ ,

_You were not there before_ ,

_When I lay upon a mountain_

_And my father's hand was trembling_

_With the beauty of the word_.

'Story Of Isaac'

**MM:** When I first read _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ and I came to such verses: " _As the mist leaves no scar/ on the dark green hill/ so my body leaves no scar/ on you and never will_ ", I thought, still do, that you were a modern day King Solomon, the king Solomon who wrote _The Song Of Songs_. Like him you employ the association of the feminine/woman with God. That's what leads me to ask: Are you a religious person?

**LC:** Not at all. Yes, of course, I'm religious.

**MM:** You said yes and no in one breath.

**LC:** I'd say it at the same time if I knew how.

**MM:** Why?

**LC:** Because there's no point in my describing myself as a religious person or not. It doesn't serve anything or anybody for me to describe myself one way or another. It doesn't serve me to answer it. In other words, we won't make ourselves stronger by examining that proposition.

**MM:** By examining what proposition would we make ourselves stronger?

**LC:** Well, we just have to play that by ear and see what confers energy or interests upon us.

**MM:** Okay... Allow me to quote you: "We have to rediscover the crucifixion because that's where man is at, on the cross".

**LC:** I could make a case for that, but... I think it's hard to speak of those things unless you're really impelled or inspired to do so. And certainly the person who has a casual conversation in a shed, as we're doing now, is not the same person who feels deeply about the position of western man, vis a vis the crucifixion. So it's very hard to cast myself back to that somewhat pretentious frame of mind, and discuss with you the predicament that we find ourselves in.

It's just that crystal logical symbolism was very appropriate to me, to use at a certain time and it just doesn't lie so well on the tongue these days so I can't really... I would really not prefer to describe our predicament in terms of the crucifixion at this very moment.

**MM:** All right.

**LC:** I really do not think it's good to talk about religion. I mean that it's not really good to talk about the things that are really important to you, except in their proper context.

That is, just to use an analogy from the past, it was obvious that anybody could kill an animal at any particular time, when anybody wanted, but there were certain rituals and certain prescriptions and certain injunctions concerning the slaughter of animals to make the event significant. And so it is with conversation, speech, language.

There are certain occasions and certain forms which make the language significant and true. And just as in ancient times, it was important to separate the clean from the unclean – neither of those ideas have a pejorative sense. When I say "unclean", I don't mean that it's dirty. I mean that it's not clean in the significant sense that it has a special power. So it is with conversation. I think that there are certain occasions when a person can speak of those things that are closest to them. I think the occasion for that kind of speech is what we call poetry, song or work or... I think you understand what I mean.

And then there's another kind of occasion, which is nothing to repudiate, nothing to avoid, which is casual conversation, casual speech, casual language, which has its place naturally. We're not supposed to go around and speak solemnly of things at all times. On the other hand, I think that the really important and secret events of the heart are best not disclosed casually, and not disclosed at moments like this.

**MM:** Are you saying that here, in this shed, only small talk, or casual conversation, is appropriate? "I came a long way for beauty," to quote you.

**LC:** It's not a matter of small talk. It's just that everybody understands that the most important things are the genesis of your work, and the engine of your energy will not be disclosed at moments like this. It doesn't serve anyone. It just defeats the engine.

**MM:** Well, let me ask you a question that might be more suited, perhaps, to this shed.

In _The Energy Of Slaves_ you say that now you have the fifteen-year-old girls you wanted when you were fifteen – it's very pleasant and it's never too late, you add – then you imply that all you need to do to be so pleasantly rewarded is to become rich and famous. Is it really so pleasant and rewarding to be rich and famous?

**LC:** You see, anybody that is interested in constructing a large body of work is going to have to treat all sorts of versions of himself and the reality as he sees it.

I completely refused to be burdened by any of my past work. I don't mean it as definitive and I don't mean it as a guide to behaviour. Anybody who puts down everything he's doing and decides to become rich and famous as a way out, well, he'll have his own risks to take in that matter.

That was written with a sense of irony and it only has meaning within the context of a large body of work that I'm in the midst of making. So, of course, there's nothing I can say about that.

There's nothing I can say about my interest in fifteen-year-old girls, my interests in renown and my interest in money.

I have the same kind of normal appetites as anyone else, and anyone could examine those appetites within himself. I just gave articulation to a moment of irony and greed.

**MM:** Irony and greed aside, what was it like to become famous after you put out sublime artistic work yet you were known to a few people, admired – even worshipped – by a few people, but not on such a large scale as after you started singing. What was it like?

**LC:** The actual experience... I certainly haven't sorted out. And I haven't even sorted that particular experience out from the ordinary rather overwhelming experience of just growing older. I don't know which is which or what is the more shattering. I certainly do feel my mind a bit of a muddle and I certainly have experienced the collapse of a lot of interior structures that I was once more certain of. I don't know whether that has to do with the particular experience that I've undergone or just a normal process of aging and destruction and recreation, which we always go through.

The experience of the Sixties, you know, was an extremely rigorous experience for a lot of people, whether they were in the public eye or not. The challenges and the revisions and transvaluations that went on, were so severe and rigorous that many people were overwhelmed. There were a lot of casualties of that time.

I can't really sort out, or I never will know what I could attribute to fame, or what I could attribute to just the experience of the age.

**MM:** You've just said "getting old" and "aging" as if you were a hundred years old when in fact you're only forty years old, or more correctly, just approaching forty. But since you raised it, I wonder if anything happened to you personally that could have caused you to describe aging as "overwhelming" and "shattering"?

**LC:** Oh Christ, mus' we? Mus' we... I don't say Ts anymore, you know. I don't say Ts, Ds, or Ss anymore. That's because of... Well, I think it's the southern and black influence in song, which has destroyed my diction and syntax. I never pronounce the final consonant in any word I say now.

**MM:** Returning to my question, I'm surprised that you described aging as "overwhelming" and "shattering", because personally I find that as I grow older I lose certain illusions and that the most difficult part of aging is that I meet my limitations.

**LC:** You meet your limitations?

**MM:** Quite often.

**LC:** In what respect?

**MM:** For instance, when I was younger...

**LC:** Yes.

**MM:** You realise of course that you're interviewing me now, but that's alright.

**LC:** [Laughs]

**MM:** When I was younger, if I would see a beautiful piece of work in literature, in music, or read about a fascinating country, I'd say, "Well, when I grow up I will be able to do this, or visit there."

**LC:** And live there and have a whole life somewhere else.

**MM:** [Laughs] But now, as the years go by I see that I cannot do this and that. Or, I think that I can't. And with each passing year I find that I have a year less to say, "Well, when I grow up, I'll be able to do this and that, or I will be able to be good at this and that."

**LC:** I know what you mean.

**MM:** You mean you have this feeling also?

**LC:** No, I just know what you mean.

**MM:** [Laughs] In reality you don't really feel the passing of years?

**LC:** No, I don't feel that I am... Of course, one is aware of the passing of the years. [Sings]

_The years go by, you lose your pride/ The baby's crying, so you do not go outside_.

I'm aware of the passing of years, but I find that the passing of the years creates a kind of desperation, which gives you the energy to do a lot of things that you never would have done when you were younger.

**MM:** Like what?

**LC:** Just a certain quality of... a boldness.

**MM:** You mean there are not so many tomorrows so you might as well go for it today?

**LC:** Well, I think you stop caring about the consequences of a number of things. Or, let's say that you are somewhat more apprised of the consequences of certain activities. Experience confers this. I suppose, in some cases, it limits you and makes you more frightened, but in other cases, it just makes you more desperate and more willing to take a chance. I think when you do feel the time seeping away, you are willing to leap, take that leap here and there. I think you're a lot less worried about what people think of you, also. I think that's a great relief from inhibition.

_Well my friends are gone and my hair is gray_

_I ache in the places where I used to play_

_And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on_

_I'm just paying my rent every day_

_Oh in the Tower of Song_

'Tower Of Song'

**MM:** Once you became famous you were taken – taken by charlatans, you told me before my record button was pressed properly.

**LC:** Well, you know, any fool with money in his pocket is going to attract hustlers, charlatans, sharks, double-dealers of every kind and it's only when you do have money, or when you represent the possibility of money to others, that you begin to have experiences in the marketplace that you never have had, or never even dreamed of.

I never knew there were dishonest people. It was a revelation to me. I don't know why. I grew up in a very honorable family where there wasn't such a thing as cheating or dishonesty in commerce. And I assumed that that was the rule of business practice throughout the world. This sounds terribly naïve but it's true.

I thought that all businessmen were gentlemen and that if a word was given, that it stood for something.

This is really... As I look back even on these words, as I look back on my experience, even these words that I'm saying now seem so totally uninformed.

After I've been, now, in the marketplace for a few years, I really see how innocent I was when I came into it. So that was an education I would never have gained, you know. I only knew that there were bad people and dishonest people from literature. I never encountered anybody that I knew to be dishonest.

It was only in so-called business affairs that I first discovered that there was dishonesty in the world. You know, patent, overt dishonesty. That people would actually try to cheat you and take away things that were yours. I never knew that existed.

**MM:** It must have been a painful awakening.

**LC:** Yeah, it was painful. It is painful to lose something that you think is rightfully yours, but on the other hand, it's such a gossamer thing to make money out of a song. It's such a strange consequence, that losing part of it doesn't really seem so terrible because there's an aspect of unreality to the whole thing. It's so strange, especially at the beginning, to write a love song and to suddenly have it bring you cash and credit cards and airplane flights and create a whole material world that you never experienced and never really had hoped [for] or wanted or greatly desired.

I had known what a comfortable life was. I came from a comfortable life. I tasted the other stuff too. But it was never something that I dreamed of. It was never something that I wanted. I suddenly had access to material possibilities that I hadn't had before. So when I found out that somebody had taken away some of that access, and had gnawed at it for their own reasons, I was hurt more from the personal point of view that someone would actually want to cheat me. I thought there was nobody who really would want to cheat me. I was too nice.

So that was the part that hurt more than the actual loss of money, because the things that money bought seemed so unreal at the time anyways and not particularly important.

But now I feel differently. Now I consider it an assault. Now I consider that an act of hostility.

In the early days I was hurt because [when] someone would cheat me, my own self-image was impaired. But now I see that the world is... there is a war in the marketplace. And that is a war. It was never anything else.

In a few remote provincial areas, like my part of Montreal, business was conducted honourably, but by and large now in the world as I see it, business is not conducted particularly honourably. And that, you know, a man must be aware of what the real situation is.

**MM:** If "business is not conducted particularly honourably by and large", as you say, why do you continue to be in show business, to sing in the marketplace?

**LC:** Well, I think that that's a very interesting place to be. Certainly it was an education for me, you know, that I would never have been able to get anywhere else.

I think money, love and war, are areas in which you find things out about other people and about yourself that no other situations can disclose.

**MM:** In the Talmud it says that you can tell the true mettle of a person by "kiso koso v'kaaso" – his money, drinking, and anger.

Atlanta, 1974. Tom Hill / Getty

**LC:** I agree.

**MM:** What about the benefits you gain through fame?

**LC:** Well, I found that my standard of living went down very sharply after I started to make money and become known.

Before I had money I lived in a lovely white house on a Greek island. I had credit with all the store owners, you know, the grocer. And I never thought about money at all, and I swam every day and I had a good suntan and everything was very light and very easy.

With the advent of money, I found myself spending more and more time in New York City, more and more time in taxis, airplanes and other unpleasant circumstances, living in air-conditioned rooms and sitting around tables discussing contracts or leading that mole-like existence you do when you're mixing a record, when you just never see the sunlight. All you see is the control board of a record studio... So that the quality of life certainly has deteriorated considerably since I have had the opportunity to move.

A real luxury today is to be someplace beautiful where the air is clean and you can swim.

**MM:** So why do you continue to record, sing, and write, instead of stopping to enjoy this luxury?

**LC:** What luxury?

**MM:** The one you mentioned just now: "To be someplace beautiful where the air is clean and you can swim". What motivates you to work, live this "mole-like existence" in recording studios, rather than enjoy the luxuries you mentioned?

**LC:** Well, one thing is that I have to make a living now and since I've concluded all these contracts with people, born and unborn, I have to make money like everyone else to take care of my responsibilities. So that's one reason.

The other reason is that it becomes a challenge in itself, the making of a record, like the making of a book, or the construction of a poem. It has its laws and its own series of dynamics which are there to be mastered if you can. And it becomes a point of interest and a point of honour to master those dynamics.

_The women in your scrapbook_

_Whom you still praise and blame_ ,

_You say they chained you to your fingernails_

_And you climb the halls of fame_.

_Oh but here, right here_ ,

_Between the peanuts and the cage_ ,

_Between the darkness and the stage_ ,

_Between the hour and the age_ ,

_Once again, once again_ ,

_Love calls you by your name_.

'Love Calls You By Your Name'

**MM:** Let's move to your ladies. You said at one time: "I will try to have something to do with every woman I meet".

**LC:** I remember I said that in Toronto; you have to be excused for things you say under duress.

**MM:** Under duress?

**LC:** That remark? It's the truth, but I don't want to make too much of it. I mean, you say a thing or two here and there and it gets around and you are asked about it, and you start composing footnotes to casual observations that you make in a moment of irresponsible sympathy with an interviewer and before you know it, it's an official description that you continually have to elaborate and magnify. But I think it's true that we are all rather obsessed with each other these days. And one does like to make contact.

**MM:** What about the ethics?

**LC:** Of what?

**MM:** Monogamy.

**LC:** The ethics of monogamy... I think marriage is for very, very high-minded people, and it's a discipline of extreme security. I would say that marriage today is a much more difficult, gruelling and severe discipline than any monastic order could impose upon its members. Marriage today is the monastery. The monastery today is freedom.

It just depends if you have a monastic nature. Because that's what monogamous marriage requires. And like other monks, in other kinds of situations, there are backsliding monks and there are enthusiastic monks and there are monks in all states of accomplishments and achievements, so that, as rare as the great monks were, so are the great married couples. But it's a high discipline requiring high minds and great effort. That's monogamous marriage. Most people conduct their marriages in the slipshod sort of way that they conduct their other affairs. I am more or less one of those.

**MM:** Why do you think it's different these days?

**LC:** Well, I think the choices, the alternatives, what we call "freedom" is a tremendous burden to the imagination, and when the imagination is provoked and excited, titillated, irritated in so many corners today that... There's a real form of oppression, a real form of discipline to confront those invitations without making it oppression. To transcend it, and really make a choice and to really turn your back on all the other possibilities and all the other experiences of passion, all the other possibilities of ecstasy, and to determine and find it within one embrace, is a high and rigorous notion only compatible with the strongest kind of will and the most gifted individuals.

**MM:** You also said that you have a sort of an ideal of love, but haven't been able to attain it.

**LC:** I don't know when I said these things or how you found out about them.

**MM:** I did some research. [Laughs]

**LC:** I have a song, the last verse goes:

_I'd like to take you to the ceremony_

_Well, that is if I remember the way_.

_You see Jack and Jill, they are going to join their misery_ ,

_I'm afraid it's time for everyone to pray_.

_You can see they've finally taken cover_ ,

_You can see they're willing to obey_.

_Their views are difficult, they are for each other_ ,

_So let nobody put a loophole in their way_.

That's a song that investigates these ideas that we are talking about.

_Why don't you try to do without him?_

_Why don't you try to live alone?_

_Do you really need his hands for your passion?_

_Do you really need his heart for your throne?_

_Do you need his labour for your baby?_

_Do you need his beast for the bone?_

_Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?_

_I know that you can make it, make it on your own_

_Why don't you try to forget him?_

_Just open up your dainty little hand_.

_You know this life is filled with many sweet companions_

_Many satisfying one-night stands_

_Do you want to be the ditch around a tower?_

_Do you want to be the moonlight in his cave?_

_Do you want to give your blessing to his power_

_As he goes whistling past his daddy_ ,

_Past his daddy's grave?_

'Why Don't You Try'

**LC:** Let me give you a cigarette.

**MM:** Okay.

**LC:** Do you have matches?

**MM:** Yes. [Lights up]

**LC:** Do you have an ashtray?

**MM:** Yeah.

**LC:** Okay.

**MM:** May I ask you another personal question?

**LC:** Yes.

**MM:** What do you fear? What is your fear? Your fears?

**LC:** My fear is that I won't get out of the particular situation that I find myself in at any particular time.

**MM:** Could you be more specific?

**LC:** Well, for instance, I was living with a woman and a child, and I said to myself, "God, it would be terrible if I had to live with this woman and this child all the time." So I struggled and I strained and I pulled at my chains and I tugged at my ropes and I got free of this situation, only to find myself in exactly the same situation – a different woman and a different child, but with the same rope still intact.

**MM:** You know, the great pantomimic Marcel Marceau had a skit about this same thing.

**LC:** Yes?

**MM:** Yes. He invests tremendous energy, imagination and creativity to extricate himself out of the blocks that have imprisoned him and he feels very happy, free and tall. But no sooner does he feel liberated and stands tall than he builds himself another prison.

**LC:** Yeah, that's what I do, but I don't even care anymore. My life is a mess. It's completely a mess. I can't go on with it.

**MM:** [Laughs] Forgive me. You look pretty good for a man whose life is a mess.

**LC:** No, it's a complete mess.

**MM:** In what way?

**LC:** In all ways, in all possible ways. It's shabby. My life is shabby. It's one of the shabbiest lives I've ever come across. It's untidy. It's not neat.

**MM:** You mean it ironically, right?

**LC:** I'll tell you what I mean. My friend Irving Layton's son, I think his son was three or four at the time when this happened. His son happened to come across Irving Layton naked, and he looked at him very carefully, looked at his private parts very carefully, and he said to him, "Daddy, you're so shabby". That's what I mean. Just shabby. You know what I mean by shabby. It's something that's old and frayed and worn and... It just suffered through the years and shows it.

_Do you remember all of those pledges_

_That we pledged in the passionate night_

_Ah they're soiled now, they're torn at the edges_

_Like moths on a still yellow light_

_No penance serves to renew them_

_No massive transfusions of trust_

_Why not even revenge can undo them_

_So twisted these vows and so crushed_

_And you say you've been humbled in love_

_Cut down in your love_

_Forced to kneel in the mud next to me_

_Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one_

_Who kneels there as deeply as thee_

'Humbled In Love'

**MM:** Please don't laugh... A seemingly lazy question, yet, strangely, in previous interviews it elicited surprising, even stunning replies. So, are you ready?

What would you say was the most frustrating experience in your life? And the most rewarding?

**LC:** The most frustrating... Suzanne is definitely the most frustrating experience in my life.

**MM:** Which Suzanne?

**LC:** Oh, all of them.

**MM:** [Laughs] And the most rewarding?

**LC:** The most rewarding is the girl I met for half an hour once. We made love in the cloakroom of a hotel in Connecticut.

**MM:** [Laughs]

_I'm turning tricks, I'm getting fixed_ ,

_I'm back on Boogie Street_.

_You lose your grip, and then you slip_

_Into the Masterpiece_.

_And maybe I had miles to drive_ ,

_And promises to keep:_

_You ditch it all to stay alive_ ,

_A Thousand Kisses Deep_.

_And sometimes when the night is slow_ ,

_The wretched and the meek_ ,

_We gather up our hearts and go_ ,

_A Thousand Kisses Deep_.

_Confined to sex, we pressed against_

_The limits of the sea:_

_I saw there were no oceans left_

_For scavengers like me_.

_I made it to the forward deck_.

_I blessed our remnant fleet_

_And then consented to be wrecked_ ,

_A Thousand Kisses Deep_.

'A Thousand Kisses Deep'

**MM:** Returning to what's the most rewarding and frustrating experience, you mentioned Suzanne, but seriously now, I wonder if—

**LC:** That's just one of the aspects of the frustration. See, I have to care about things now, you know? I don't want to care about things. I don't want to care about anything. I'm tired of caring about anything. Caring about anything just inhibits you. I have things that I have written that I am reluctant to publish because it will hurt people, you know, and there are all kind of things like that, that are extremely annoying.

**MM:** Do you think an artist should be selfish?

**LC:** I think he has to be selfish or he doesn't remain an artist. Just as there's a conspiracy against lovers, you know. There's not some deliberate conspiracy – people don't sit up in little rooms plotting against lovers – but there's a general conspiracy against lovers, because people really don't like to see other people happy, and the experience of ecstasy is extremely distasteful for those that are not within it.

So it is with artists. People really would prefer to have their artist crippled or dead. This is a platitude but it's true. I feel it in myself. When I come across someone who's writing too well, who's producing too much, who is in touch with that creative centre, who is swept along by that flood, all the time, really, I feel somewhat resentful and I often think of killing him.

**MM:** You're jealous?

**LC:** It's more than jealousy. It's a profound resentment. It's much, much more. Jealousy leads to inner gnawing and inner pain. But this emotion that is produced that I have remarked in myself and in others in relation to myself, this is a much more aggressive and outward kind of emotion and the people really do try to silence a singer.

Now, this is a subtle thing and people may accuse me of paranoia, but if you really examine yourself, and you are a singer and I think you might understand this process... It's not jealousy. We really do resent someone being touched by the angels too often. And there are Greek myths about this sort of thing. If someone is too beautiful, if someone's gift is too bright, and someone's being is too luminous, there is a natural movement on the part of those around this individual to suffocate and extinguish this being.

**MM:** Do you feel it's being done to you?

**LC:** Well, I don't know if I'm quite luminous or bright enough to really provoke that activity in any intense form but I have felt it. And I have seen it done to others brighter and more luminous than myself. And I've seen them die.

_When I am on a pedestal_ ,

_You did not raise me there_.

_Your laws do not compel me_

_To kneel grotesque and bare_.

_I myself am the pedestal_

_For this ugly hump at which you stare_.

_You who wish to conquer pain_ ,

_You must learn what makes me kind;_

_The crumbs of love that you offer me_ ,

_The crumbs I've left behind_.

_Your pain is no credential here_ ,

_It's just the shadow, shadow of my wound_.

'Avalanche'

**MM:** I'd like to turn to your music now. How do you feel when you read or hear people say that your music has not always reached the superb unique level of your poetry and lyrics?

**LC:** I can understand that appreciation of the work. I have another kind of idea about music. I think the quiet movement of music and the subtle movement of music is the important part.

I myself have a kind of appreciation for a guy who can rub his thumb right down the piano from one end to the other and create cascades and waterfalls of sound, and that sort of thing. That's a kind of music. But I tried to make another kind of music, and I work at it as hard as I work at anything else, and I try to design the music to create the total effect.

I try to design the words to go with the music and the music to go with the words. If I felt that a particular melody needed more variation to create its effect, you know, I could probably insert a few chords or changes, rises and falls, to do so, but I try to use the minimum movement of the melody line that I can. And sometimes when I'm confronted with this kind of question, I say, "Yes, it's true. My music is dull and over simple. And the reason it is all in one area, is because I can't sing very high or very low and I design the music to go with my voice." That's partially true, but to speak seriously, and because I've been confronted with this criticism for so long that it is becoming tedious, I can say that I do work at the music, and I do feel that the melodic line is what is necessary and what is needed to create the song.

**MM:** Do you ever find that you repeat yourself?

**LC:** Well I think that you repeat yourself continually. I think it was Scott Fitzgerald that observed that a writer only has one or two stories. If he has three stories, he's a major writer. Most writers have one or two stories that they tell over and over again. And most songwriters have one or two songs that they sing over and over again. I think occasionally a genius comes along that actually has four or five melodies, four or five songs. But most of us only have one or two songs.

**MM:** Well, I think you have more, many more than four or five songs and poems, let alone two... Is it different for you to perform a song than to record it?

**LC:** It's different in the sense that in the studio you can always do another take. But on the stage you cannot erase your humiliations or mistakes.

**MM:** You mean you sort of go for broke at stage performances?

**LC:** On the stage... [Sound of a baby crying from inside the house. Sings]

_The baby's crying_

_So you do not go outside_.

_On the stage..._

_The years go by_ ,

_You lose your pride_.

Yes, you go for broke. Anyhow, you're involved with a great number of people and they have to adjust themselves to you and you have to adjust yourself to them and it's another kind of experience altogether.

If the crowd gets big enough, it gets solitary. It gets like the studio. In other words, you're just playing for yourself. If the crowd is very, very big, you're playing for yourself, yeah. But if it's a normal-sized hall, then there is a conversation going on.

**MM:** Do you prefer that?

**LC:** No, I don't prefer it either. I'd like to get along without both.

**MM:** Without both?

**LC:** Yeah.

**MM:** So why do you do it?

**LC:** I do it for the money.

**MM:** [Laughs] Right, "for the money," says he, irony stamped all over his face... But, OK, let me roll with that: what about recording. Do you record also for the money?

**LC:** I do everything for the money now.

**MM:** No, really, Leonard. [Laughs] "Do not dress in those rags for me, I know you are not poor..." I'm quoting you.

**LC:** I'm serious. I'm serious. I had this notion that I'm bankrupt and every time I turn around there's another child, another mouth to feed. And it caused me to panic, and to start examining my contracts very carefully.

**MM:** And yet you seem to take such great care about recording.

**LC:** Yes, I take a lot of care.

**MM:** You take a lot of care that it will be a commercial record or, rather, an expression of what you want it to be?

**LC:** If I knew how to make a commercial record, I would make one. I've been trying to sell out for...ever, since I started this art racket. But I don't know how to sell out. I don't know how to make a commercial record. I don't know how to write a commercial poem. I don't know how to write a commercial novel. I've tried. I never tried to be obscure. I never tried to make my work for a limited audience, you know, I've been trying to interest the masses in my vision for a long time.

**MM:** And is that the attitude that you're going to a studio with?

**LC:** I certainly don't go into a studio with the idea of eliminating any part of the audience from access to my work. No, I would like it to appeal to as many people as possible. I would like it to be very popular. I felt that way about all my work. I've never felt that it belonged among a certain people, or a certain kind of person.

**MM:** But you are a major artist recognised and adored by many all over the world.

**LC:** Well, I don't speak to the masses, by any means. I have a very limited audience. I think I have an audience of a very high quality.

**MM:** But your songs are sung by many and are covered by many, many singers the world over.

**LC:** Yeah, but I mean I have no illusions of the fact that I'm a major artist. I know that I have an audience, but I'm not... I don't have the access to the world audience that other artists have.

**MM:** Would you like to?

**LC:** Well, it's not something I dream about. As I say, I would like the work to reach as many people as it possibly can.

The work... Any work has a kind of organic boundary. And I think that the nature of a work will bring it to the right amount of people that it really is designed for.

I have designed my work for as many people as possible but my vision itself may be limited. It may have its own natural boundaries, its own natural limitations and perhaps it will never be what you would call a "worldwide" vision, a vision that is accessible to the masses and played on every jukebox, on every corner.

**MM:** How can you say it when your song 'Suzanne', for one, is known all over the world.

**LC:** It is in some parts, but... It's moved slowly, and it has a kind of slow vertical movement. You know, moving through the years from one year to another, but it never, at any particular point, was widely exposed. You know, it's been around for a long time and people remember it now and then, so that it keeps interesting new generations of listeners. But it never had a worldwide impact, like, let's say the songs of The Beatles or The Stones would have. As soon as a record is put out, it's instantaneously known by millions of people throughout the world. My work has another kind of movement.

**MM:** But you do have recognition and celebrity. We cannot argue about that.

**LC:** Only in some areas. Down this street, the street where I live, nobody knows or cares about that aspect of my life.

**MM:** Is this why you chose it?

**LC:** No. It's not why I chose it.

**MM:** Does celebrity affect Leonard Cohen the poet?

**LC:** Well, I don't know exactly to whom you're referring when you say that. [A baby cries in the background. LC sings] _The baby's crying_...

Everything that happens. Anything that happens to a man obviously affects him in all his enterprises. And there are enough forces in the world to destroy a poet and artist or a man of any kind. And whatever comes your way is just something you have to deal with. It's not the particular thing in itself.

Any man knows that when he becomes proficient at anything, that he automatically creates hazards for himself. And it's the value of his strength and of his excellence and proficiency in that area in which he's developed himself, as to how he deals with those hazards.

The hazard of celebrity is just one of the hazards that go with becoming a strong writer. Now it can defeat some men who are not strong enough to deal with it.

On the other hand, the poverty and rejection and oblivion are other kinds of hazards that can destroy a writer. So that every man, whatever his situation is going to have enemies and trials and ordeals. And that's how he strengthens himself, and that's how he survives or goes under. All that of course is a platitude.

**MM:** There are many singers who sing your songs – do you enjoy to hear your songs sung by others?

**LC:** I love to hear other singers do my songs. In fact, it is really one of the great pleasures I've had in my whole working life to hear somebody sing a song of mine. And not just people recording, I mean, professional musicians... To hear anybody sing one of my songs always gives me a special kind of feeling. I've never gotten sophisticated about that. If I just pass a bunch of kids and somebody's taken up a guitar and starts to sing 'Bird On The Wire' or 'Suzanne', I'm still very touched by it.

**MM:** Would you like to sing other people's songs?

**LC:** I would like to sing other people's songs, but I find that when I listen to them, when I listen to the version that I've laid down, that it doesn't please me. I think there are some people's songs I could sing, but to be a singer of people's songs, like you are, I think you have to have a special kind of spirit, and also a special musical quality to the voice, that I don't have.

**MM:** Which songs would you like to sing, for instance?

**LC:** Well, I would love to sing 'Eres Tu'. That's the kind of song I would love to sing. That's the song I don't think I could sing. That's the song that you can sing.

**MM:** I did sing it – not as well as I'd have liked to, alas.

You know, of all the places in the world, I find it particularly difficult to sing in two places—

**LC:** At once.

**MM:** [Laughs] In my native land and in my adapted homeland, I mean, both are really my hometowns. Is it the same for you?

**LC:** It is difficult to play your hometown. No question about it.

**MM:** Why do you think it is?

**LC:** First of all, the audiences you attract are very different than the audiences that usually come to a concert. They are people who ordinarily wouldn't go to that kind of event, who are coming merely to see you, and if you've lived in one place for a long time as I have and your family's been here for some time, it means that a sizeable proportion of the audience is going to be composed of friends and relatives and acquaintances who have no interest in the material other than the fact that someone they know or someone's son or nephew that they know has written it. So you find that the quality of the audience is very, very different. Now, it could possibly be enjoyable and interesting and satisfactory but it generally isn't.

I had the same experience when I published my first book of poems. Suddenly people who had never bought a book of poems ever, and had never read any poetry, were offering me their opinion on this particular book without any understanding of the tradition that it comes out of. In other words, you get a lot of uninformed opinions and a lot of uninformed reactions. Now this could be enjoyable on certain levels, but generally it isn't.

**MM:** Which is your favorite place to perform? Or you don't have any? I, for instance, I love to perform in the States because I get a tremendous boost of energy from the audience there.

**LC:** It's hard to say beforehand. I can always tell you afterwards. I think it's just a matter of how you feel you've been loved. And like love everywhere else, it's often a surprise.

London, 1974. Michael Putland / Getty
**At The House**

* * *

"WAR BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN"

**MM:** You're preparing to go on tour now "for very professional reasons," you said in the shed. How do you feel about going on the road for these "very professional reasons"?

**LC:** I'm looking forward to it. Something may happen.

**MM:** Like what?

**LC:** Just anything to interrupt monotonous flow of days. [A baby is crying in the background]

_The baby crying, the missus is ill, the bills, the whole dreary escapade_.

_The ship of poetry has wrecked against the rocks of daily life_.

**MM:** What about the monotony of touring?

**LC:** The monotony of touring – will be interrupted by the adventure of daily life.

**MM:** [Laughs] One of the things that I find difficult about going on tour is repeating the same songs for two or three weeks, even longer, without singing them sort of on automatic pilot. But in my case, I go on tour with few musicians, so I can switch song spontaneously, whereas you, when you work with many musicians and backup singers, it's more of a challenge, no?

**LC:** I think that this is something that everybody experiences, but I think if you repeat yourself for a short period of time, it can become tedious, but when you know that you're going to be repeating yourself over and over and over, maybe for thirty or forty or fifty nights in a row, then the repetition takes on another quality and it becomes interesting, and you start devoting yourself to the repetition and seeing it as empty, seeing it as pure form, and seeing it as a challenge each time.

So you don't say to yourself, "Oh Christ, I've got to sing 'Suzanne' again". You say, "Ah, here it comes again, now it's empty. I've got to pour something into it. I've got to recreate it." And if the ordeal has really become intense and really become accentuated, then you can devote yourself to the ordeal and meet it in a certain way that makes it interesting.

**MM:** What about the showbiz part of touring... the sort of idolatry, let me have a piece of your suit, a lock of your hair, things like that? And the glamour?

**LC:** Well, that's very enjoyable. Certainly it's something that has a pleasant taste to it and a sweet taste to it. There are parts of it that have a bitter taste to it. There are times when you feel that it's not doing your character any good. And, again, like a song that has to be repeated over and over again, when you find very receptive audiences over and over again, after a while you stop thinking that it has anything to do with you particularly, that it has anything to do with your virtue, or that in any way validates some aspect of excellence that you think you possess, and it just becomes something to deal with. And it becomes a test of character as to how you are going to deal with it. Are you going to sell out to it? Are you going to believe it? Or, are you going to meet it dispassionately? There are lots of possibilities and alternatives in how you're going to greet this phenomenon.

**MM:** What is it like for you to perform on the stage, if you indeed consider it performing?

**LC:** What do you mean by that? [Laughs] "If indeed I consider it performing." What do you think I consider it? [Laughs louder]

**MM:** I think many, if not most, of the audience in your concerts would consider it an experience.

**LC:** An experience?

**MM:** Yes.

**LC:** You know, you're always asking me questions about the past and the future. I've noticed that about you. What did I mean when I said something and what will I mean when I do something. [Laughing]

**MM:** Does it bother you when I ask you about the past and the future?

**LC:** Not as long as you keep your head on my waist? Are you comfortable?

**MM:** Oh I'm sorry, this recording machine can take only one mic. Would you hold the mic? So that I won't have to hold it and sit so close. Am I sitting too close to you?

**LC:** Not at all.

**MM:** Since my reference to the past seemed to annoy you, let me ask you something about the present. You're awaiting, now, the birth of your second child...

**LC:** That's right. But I don't like to speak about these things in public.

**MM:** What things? You don't know what I'm about to ask.

**LC:** Well, you've already said too much. I consider it extremely indiscreet that you mention the fact that I have children.

**MM:** But you mentioned that you have children.

**LC:** When did I say that? In our previous discussions?

**MM:** Yes, you mentioned it a few times: " _the baby's crying..._ " And also in your poetry and songs... " _I live here with a woman and a child/ The situation makes me kind of nervous/ Yes, I rise up from her arms, she says,/ 'I guess you call this love', I call it service_." I'm quoting from your song 'There Is A War'.

**LC:** Ahhh, yes. But we have no reason to assume that everything in my poems and songs reflects accurate events. I mean that actually happened in this world. I don't like to bring my family into the public realm at all. I like to keep it a sanctuary.

**MM:** Okay. I respect that.

**LC:** You know, it's bad enough that people know that my name is Leonard Cohen and that I'm forty years old and I've done this and done that. But if the entire family and friends are summoned, then I think it really does impede my strength.

**MM:** Duly noted and respected.

**LC:** See, I'm not even sure whether the voice of the woman I live with should be heard. It's not a matter of what she says or doesn't say. It's the fact that a certain intimate connection of mine is publicised.

**MM:** Well, in that case, I won't use my interview with Suzanne, I'm sorry, I didn't think it would be an issue when I recorded it.

**LC:** I've got to think about it. Now that I think about it, I think it's not a good idea. I think that it is a weakening force rather than a strengthening force, and you're not interested in weakening me.

**MM:** No.

**LC:** Right.

**MM:** The reason that I interviewed Suzanne is... In my interview with Pablo Casals, I talked with Marta Casals and I found that it strengthened him.

**LC:** In that case, you're already dealing with a man who had made himself strong and at the end of his life, it's very different. I'm not at the same... It's like going from the sublime to the ridiculous. I'm not at the same point. I probably never will be. But Casals is... It's a different kind of life, and he's also dealing with another kind of material. And in that case you're strengthening him because you're talking to a young woman who has devoted herself to an older man and there's an implication of his energy and his strength and his vitality. In my case, it would only be a revelation of intimacy, which is not necessarily salutary.

Hamburg, 1970. Gunter Zint / Getty

**MM:** Okay, I respect it, of course, even though I don't agree with you.

**LC:** Very well said, too.

**MM:** Can I leave this part on?

**LC:** Put the explanation on. That's very good.

**MM:** But, you know, I wonder if you are putting a lid on voices of female family members to keep an aura of mystique about you.

**LC:** No, I haven't paid too much attention to that, otherwise it would be a much better myth and a much better aura. If that had really been my intention, to create a very compelling mystery or aura about myself, you know, I wouldn't have used my own name, and I wouldn't have been giving the statistics of my life so freely to anyone who asks.

Amsterdam, 1972. Gijsbert Hanekroot / Getty

**MM:** Since you mentioned your name... You have one of the most aristocratic names in the Jewish culture. Cohen – a high priest. However, troubadours on this continent especially tend to change their names. And in one of your songs you say, " _Father change my name_ ". Were you tempted to do it in "real life"?

**LC:** No. I was never tempted to change my name. Now sometimes I wish I had, because, in a way, one would like to be just a voice out of nowhere. I understand the power of that kind of lack of information.

**MM:** You mean it in the context of Castaneda's claim that it is best not to have a personal history?

**LC:** Oh, I think there is a lot of strength that is gained from that. Also, just in terms of one's own work, when the history of the individual, the writer is known, it often comes between the listener or between the reader and the work. One is continually interpreting the work through the history of the author, which often gives it a slant that detracts and is quite irrelevant.

**MM:** You mean, people compare and contrast the "truth" of your life and how it is manifested in your work?

**LC:** When someone hears a name associated with a kind of background, with a kind of upbringing, with a kind of education, with a kind of experience – they funnel the song or the work through that information. Now, often their estimation of that background, upbringing, education and experience is totally inaccurate and, to my way of thinking, it interferes with the appreciation of the material.

**MM:** But you do have a personal history.

**LC:** Well, I've never bothered to create an image that would serve the material specifically. That's just because my work happened to grow slowly from quite an early age and it never occurred to me, you know, to go to the trouble to establish anonymity. I started writing and I showed it to friends and they knew who I was and the thing grew so slowly that there was never any point or time to suddenly obscure the origins of the material.

_I asked my father_ ,

_I said, "Father change my name."_

_The one I'm using now it's covered up_

_With fear and filth and cowardice and shame_.

_Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me_ ,

_Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me_.

_He said, "I locked you in this body_ ,

_I meant it as a kind of trial_.

_You can use it for a weapon_ ,

_Or to make some woman smile."_

_Yes and lover, lover, lover... come back to me_

_"Then let me start again," I cried_ ,

_"Please let me start again_ ,

_I want a face that's fair this time_ ,

_I want a spirit that is calm."_

_Yes and lover, lover, lover... come back to me_

_"I never, never turned aside," he said_ ,

_"I never walked away_.

_It was you who built the temple_ ,

_It was you who covered up my face."_

_Yes and lover, lover, lover... come back to me_

_And may the spirit of this song_ ,

_May it rise up pure and free_.

_May it be a shield for you_ ,

_A shield against the enemy_.

_Yes and lover, lover, lover... come back to me_

_Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover... come back to me_.

'Lover Lover Lover'

**MM:** You say, "Please let me start again, I want a face that's fair this time, I want a spirit that is calm". What else would you want if you could start again? What would you change?

**LC:** You mean if I had the power to change things?

**MM:** Yes.

**LC:** Well, I don't. I don't... [Laughs quietly] It's impossible to speak of these things because the change you want, the change you wish, is based on experience. The experiences come about through your... Let me put it this way. Any changes that I would want would be based on my experience. And without that experience, I wouldn't have the information to establish what kind of changes I wanted or not, so that the notion of changing is futile. The change is based on experience and the experience is what has made you anyhow. I can't really describe what I mean. Do you know what I mean?

**MM:** Do you mean you are the sum-total of your experience?

**LC:** Yes, and anything that you have within that context is based on what you are anyhow, so... It's just a continuing soap opera.

**MM:** Well, in "real life", you have a new experience. You are a father and you have the responsibility of being a parent. Does it change your outlook on life?

**LC:** It does... Oh yes. It does change.

**MM:** In what way?

**LC:** It makes you dull and slow-witted and tired and fed up, among other things. It certainly does do those things. You see, the next generation has already been created and, except to provide a roof and food, the male in this situation is really quite superfluous.

**MM:** Personally, my father was certainly not superfluous in my life. He provided not only a roof and food but inspired me to sing, read and write... What about instilling values, spiritual guidance – even just the meaning of the family name that you're passing on to them?

**LC:** I suppose I could pass on a few things, but there are many male models around that could do as good a job as I could. As for duplicating myself or reproducing myself, I have no interest in creating someone just like me.

**MM:** So why the children then?

**LC:** Well, the children in my case were generally the woman's idea, but this is nobody's business but my own, you know. I have myself no urgency and no strong desire to participate in the creation of the next generation. I never felt that. But Suzanne, although rationally she doesn't know why she is in the position she's in, was seized by an overwhelming need for children.

_Your father's gone a-hunting_

_And he's lost his lucky charm_

_And he's lost the guardian heart_

_That keeps the hunter from the harm_

_Your father's gone a-hunting_

_He asked me to say goodbye_

_And he warned me not to stop him_

_I wouldn't, I wouldn't even try_

'Hunter's Lullaby'

**MM:** In your song 'There Is A War' you express a sort of a war between man and woman. For real? Or/and metaphorically?

**LC:** That song starts: "There is a war between the rich and the poor, a war between a man and a woman, there is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say that there isn't". But you see, I'm not a politician and I don't have to be bound by any aspect of any particular thing that I have treated. I've described the war between men and women. It's a fact that everybody recognises. It's not something that I have to justify. Any man over thirty knows that there is a war between men and women. I mean even before women became vocal, and their own interpretation of the war.

But that isn't the only aspect between men and women. It's just one of the aspects that I've treated in my work, and in my life – I mean sometimes I'm in a state of war with a woman and sometimes there's a truce. Sometimes it feels that there never was a war. And sometimes there never was a truce. We are not always in the aspect of warriors.

**MM:** But surely you don't mean a war for real?

**LC:** Fight to the death.

**MM:** [Laughs] Your lips are curling – ironically, it seems.

**LC:** You know what war is.

**MM:** Yes, unfortunately, I do know what a real war is.

**LC:** Well, that's what it is. I mean, we have to assume with each other in a conversation that, in the conversation we both know what we are talking about. And I think you have to assume that the people listening know what we're talking about, and I think we can agree that there is a war between men and women. That is, that often there is a fight to the death, that is a fight to the psychic death between men and women, a struggle for supremacy, and a ruthless and vicious contest of wills.

Now this is only one aspect. This is by no means a total description of all activities between men and women.

I mean a marriage or a long association between a man and a woman is such a subtle and complex and mysterious event that writers, singers and poets will be engaged from now on, and all the time up to now, in trying to illuminate this awesome mystery.

**MM:** Do you think that's more pronounced now because "women became vocal", as you put it?

**LC:** No, I don't think there is any more or less. I think this is an aspect of struggle. And I have no idea what it means in the long run. I would say that women's lib, in a sense, gives away the position, and makes the female position somewhat weaker than it was when these activities... when this war was somewhat more camouflaged.

This only applies to the luxury class. You know, when it comes down to opportunities for employment and equal wages and that sort of thing, I don't think that any reasonable person will have any quarrels with the position that liberated women take on this.

In terms of the upper classes, and the luxury-loving people (such as we are), then the disclosure of women that they are, you know, at war, kind of gives their position away.

Like, I never thought they were at war until they convinced me of it. I just thought I was taking these bruises accidentally. But now I know there is a full-fledged war, both sides have stated their intentions.

**MM:** Women are stronger than men, you mentioned before.

**LC:** They seem to be very much stronger today. I think that anyone who observes men and women in the same room carefully understands that women make most of the major decisions in any room at any time. They are making the sexual choices, certainly, in most situations nowadays. They seem to be determining the psychic quality in any room that they are in these days.

**MM:** So are you giving up?

**LC:** I quit!

**MM:** [Laughs]

_There is a war between the rich and poor_

_War between the man and the woman_

_There is a war between the ones who say there is a war_

_And the ones who say there isn't_

_Why don't you come on back to the war?_

_Why don't you come on back to the war?_

_You cannot stand what I've become_

_You much prefer the gentleman I was before_

_I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control_

_I didn't even know there was a war_

'There Is A War'

**MM:** In 'So Long, Marianne' and in many of your songs and your poems, your lovers are forever parting.

**LC:** That's true. I don't remember any of the songs right now... I don't remember the songs I wrote a long time ago. Let's see... They are all saying goodbye to each other?

**MM:** Well, you love them and leave them.

_Hello, my love_ ,

_And my love_ ,

_Goodbye_.

'Here It Is'

_Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving_.

_Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost_.

'Alexandra Leaving'

_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_.

'Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye'

_So long, Marianne, it's time that we began_

_To laugh and cry and cry_

_And laugh about it all again_.

'So Long, Marianne'

**LC:** Well, I have a few here on my new record in which they are condemned to each other for eternity. For instance, I have that song, it goes like this:

_I tried to leave you_ ,

_I don't deny_

_I closed the book on us_

_At least a hundred times_

_I wake up every morning by your side_

_The years go by_ ,

_You lose your pride_

_The baby is crying so you do not go outside_

_And all your work is right before your eyes_

_Goodnight, my darling_

_I hope you're satisfied_

_The bed is kind of narrow_ ,

_But my arms are opened wide_

_And here's a man working for your smile_.

'I Tried To Leave You'

This is a monogamous song.

**MM:** Still, you use the word "condemn" to describe monogamy.

**LC:** Lovers condemn. They're like mated beasts – the same cage and the long embrace and fighting over scraps of freedom. There is a version of the thing which is very unattractive. I think anyone who has lived with anyone else knows what I mean.

**MM:** Much of your work is expressed in terms of relationship between man and woman. Be it allegorically or metaphorically, it's man and woman...

**LC:** I suppose all subjects are just an allegory or metaphor for human activity. I think I was very badly educated and never taught how to work with things; if I had really learned a skill and another relationship with the world in which the emphasis on the social activities were not so strong, I might have been able to treat other subjects. I don't know... That was my experience. I didn't really have significant experience with the world, the forests, the rivers or with machines and ideas. I had very simple and limited relationships. One was with my own mind, that is writing, and the other was with the people that I lived with, which were women.

**MM:** Judging by your poetry and songs, you draw your inspiration from real life relationships with people... With women in particular.

**LC:** Yes, I certainly think in the past that's true. I don't feel that so much anymore.

**MM:** Did you ever get any feedback from persons who had inspired certain experiences or events or emotions you've used publicly, in your writing?

**LC:** I've never been accused of betraying anything that should be left unsaid. No, I don't think that I've exploited it on that level. If you can make something that is beautiful out of something you've experienced, I think that everybody concerned is happy about it.

**MM:** Well, I'm thinking of Zelda Fitzgerald. She seemed to resent that her husband had used their experiences in his work.

**LC:** Yes, well, I guess she had ambitions as a writer herself. But I don't know – I don't think I've taken anything that anybody could have used in any other way.

_I've been listening_

_To all the dissention_

_I've been listening_

_To all the pain_

_And I feel that no matter_

_What I do for you_

_It's going to come back again_

_But I think that I can heal it_

_But I think that I can heal it_

_I'm a fool, but I think I can heal it_

_With this song_

'Minute Prologue'

Hamburg, 1974. Ellen Poppinga / Getty
**At Rehearsals**

* * *

"IN THE WOODS"

**MM:** The creative input of the group during this afternoon's rehearsal was wonderful – inspiring, really.

**LC:** There is a lot of cross-fertilisation in the group and a lot of ideas do emerge, but I especially like singing with Emily [Bindiger] and Erin [Dickins] because, first of all, they sweeten the air around me, and it makes my own voice sound better to me... my own voice seems bearable when I have it sweetened by these two voices, you know? Like, I'll begin a phrase and they will carry it through into something that is music. I know that what I began was not quite music. But when I hear it develop... For instance, we do a song called 'Leaving Green Sleeves' that is on the record [ _New Skin For The Old Ceremon_ y], which is a development of the song 'Greensleeves', and I sing a phrase and Emily and Erin carry it right down the line, bars beyond where I end. And I think people can, even at the end of their phrase, think charitably of what I have done.

_I sang my songs, I told my lies_ ,

_To lie between your matchless thighs_.

_And ain't it fine, ain't it wild_

_To finally end our exercise_.

_Then I saw you naked in the early dawn_ ,

_Oh, I hoped you would be someone new_.

_I reached for you but you were gone_ ,

_So lady I'm going too_.

_Green sleeves, you're all alone_

_Green sleeves, you're all alone_ ,

_The leaves have fallen, the men have all gone home_.

_Green sleeves, it's so easily done_ ,

_Leaving the Lady Green Sleeves_.

'Leaving Green Sleeves'

**MM:** When we were singing with you around your kitchen table back in Montreal, you said that you cannot duplicate this kind of a feeling in a studio.

**LC:** Well, I think you can duplicate it. I don't think I did. That particular song that we were singing, 'Lover, Lover, Lover', we sang that song better around the kitchen table than we had in the studio. But I think that that's just because I haven't mastered the studio yet in the same way that I've mastered the kitchen table.

**MM:** [Laughs]

**LC:** I hope, perhaps, if I continue making records, I will be able to have a higher mastery of the studio. I think we could have gotten that feeling in the studio.

If you had come down to the studio, and maybe Roshi had been there and some other friends, then we could have gotten that feeling. It's just a matter of failure of energy.

You know, there were so many other things that had to be done that I had to settle for a version of the song that was respectable, that reached a certain standard.

**MM:** I'm sorry, I thought you meant it in a general way...

**LC:** No, I didn't mean it in a general... I think that all these things are possible. There's no reason why that kind of energy and that kind of magic cannot be conjured in a studio situation. I think it can. I think there are records around that... For instance, Dylan's 'Rainy Day Woman' has that feeling of people just jamming together, and it is a wonderful thing when it comes, and I think that song ['Lover Lover Lover'] should have had that. That's one of the songs that I feel... somewhat reluctant about.

**MM:** How do you feel about the other songs on this new record that you've just finished, _New Skin For The Old Ceremony_?

**LC:** Well, I tend to answer that in a technical way. I think I'm pleased with the record. There are three songs that I feel I would have redone if I had the time and the energy. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to bring a record from its conception to its conclusion and adhere to certain standards and principles, because you're dealing with large numbers of people and a lot of machinery, and there are a lot of areas, moment after moment, in which the whole thing can fall away from the standards you've set, so, by and large, I'm pleased with it.

The production, I think, is good. The sound is good. The conception is good. The arrangements are excellent. I've had the great good luck of working with a man by the name of John Lissauer, who has understood the work very, very well, and everything he's added to the song and the music has been, I think, very fine.

I do have quarrels here and there. But they're of a minor quality. There are three songs that I would redo, if I could do it. I don't want to say what they are because there's no point in casting shadows on the thing.

Naturally, I feel like someone said about poems. You know, you never finish a poem, you just abandon them. So I feel that a lot of the songs, if I had kept them around for another four or five years, would have had interesting developments. But I don't think I could tolerate in myself, and my dependents certainly couldn't tolerate, another five or six years of silence. So that, all these things considered, I think it's okay.

**MM:** During the rehearsal break, you said that you are quite satisfied with the record you've just completed because the music is more in the foreground now than it has ever been before.

**LC:** Well, when I say I'm satisfied, I mean that I find it endurable. In other words, I'm not totally humiliated by the work I have a lot of reservations about. That goes without saying. But I'm pleased by the fact that there is a record because I never thought that there would be another record. I thought that I had a number of unfinished songs that I couldn't seem to finish. I thought that, for very good reason, the muse had deserted me, and that I would not stand around scratching at her door and I would have the courage to turn my back on the whole thing, which I was quite prepared to do and had done, even though there was pressure on me to make another record – you know, financial pressure and also the pressure of the challenge.

But I had pretty well turned my back on it. And I had abandoned all these unfinished songs I had pretty well closed the book on.

And, for some reason or another, I had a golden fortnight and a lot of songs presented conclusions to me. So I found myself with some finished songs, which was very refreshing. I hadn't had that experience for a long time.

**MM:** I had a wise teacher who maintained that a gift is also a liability.

**LC:** A gift is a liability?

**MM:** Yes. Do you feel that your gifts are also a liability?

**LC:** Not at all.

**MM:** Don't you feel a certain responsibility to them? Disciplined because of them? I wondered about it when you said the muse had deserted you, "For very good reasons".

**LC:** Well, you know, I think that there is tremendous justice and equilibrium in the psychic world or in the invisible world or that mental world, or whatever you want to call it... and that we are always completely responsible for our own condition. And when I say that I was no longer visited by inspiration, to put it in classical terms, I felt that was quite justified.

It's hard to go into the actual reasons for that and I don't think it does me any service to try to describe it any more thoroughly. It's just that if I knew the poems weren't coming, I knew that either I was resting, which was the charitable description of what the process was, or I was not leading the kind of life which invited that kind of inspiration.

**MM:** Which is, what?

**LC:** Well, it's hard to say exactly what it is, you know. It's a thing of degree and it's a subtle thing. Everybody understands this, that they can be off one day or two days or three days but then when they're off continually, they generally know why. They can either adjust their direction or if they're particularly pig-headed and stubborn, and irresponsible, they can persist in their course and endure sterility. And I suppose there are all kinds of complexities, but generally, we are... I would say we are always responsible for this kind of situation ourselves, and the correction of it. Anyhow, I had the illusion [that] the correction of it is in our own hands too.

_I looked for you in everyone_

_And they called me on that too_

_I lived alone but I was only_

_Coming back to you_

_Ah they're shutting down the factory now_

_Just when all the bills are due_

_And the fields they're under lock and key_

_Tho' the rain and the sun come through_

_And springtime starts but then it stops_

_In the name of something new_

_And all the senses rise against this_

_Coming back to you_

_And they're handing down my sentence now_

_And I know what I must do_

_Another mile of silence while I'm_

_Coming back to you_

_There are many in your life_

_And many still to be_

_Since you are a shining light_

_There's many that you'll see_

_But I have to deal with envy_

_When you choose the precious few_

_Who've left their pride on the other side of_

_Coming back to you_

_Even in your arms I know_

_I'll never get it right_

_Even when you bend to give me_

_Comfort in the night_

_I've got to have your word on this_

_Or none of it is true_

_And all I've said was just instead of_

_Coming back to you_

'Coming Back To You'

**MM:** Your music was not expressed properly in your records prior to this new album, you told me before...

**LC:** Well, I felt that I had a lot of trouble translating my ideas... You did an interview with Joni Mitchell a few weeks ago that I heard, where I think Tom Scott spoke of the fact that Joni didn't know the technical language of music, but that he could translate her vision into music. Well, I came across such a man, John Lissauer, who completely understood the nature of my music and intention of the lyrics and could translate this into music and not only that, but could augment them and elaborate them so that the effort can satisfy his own high intentions, so... I'm quite pleased with the music that has come out. I think it's just a scanty beginning, but it's a respectable beginning of what I hope will be... at least a collaboration that lasts for another record or so.

**MM:** Do you listen to your previous recordings?

**LC:** No, I don't like listening to them, but I think they're okay.

**MM:** Why don't you like listening to them?

**LC:** I already heard them...

**MM:** [Laughs]

[John Lissauer, producer and arranger, enters the room]

**LC:** Malka, this is John Lissauer. John, Malka is a singer.

**MM:** Hi John, yours is a new association with Leonard I understand.

[Leonard leaves the room]

**JOHN LISSAUER** : Yes. I met him through Lewis Furey, another local Montrealer. I made some records with him and I've just put together a band for him. We did two weeks at the Nelson Hotel. And Leonard came down and sort of liked the approach that I had taken and there you have it. He came to New York and we talked. And we decided to try a couple of cuts and see what happened. And... the way it worked... I saw myself more of an illustrator, to put Leonard's songs in a framework, to give it the colours...

I tried to work to Leonard rather than make him change in any way. The way we recorded everything was to work basically to Leonard's voice and his guitar and maybe a bass or drums or another guitar, but very, very simply. We'd record that until we got something that we were very happy with. And then we would add the colours, add the textures to that, to give it a kind of framework. So, in some cases, things are very sparse, if that was appropriate, and in some cases, they are more done up.

**MM:** Did you find the music challenging?

**JL:** Tremendously.

**MM:** In what way?

**JL:** Now, you hit me with the easy questions. I'll have to get it in before Leonard comes back... Leonard doesn't play an extra note. He doesn't write an extra word. Everything is scaled. It's actual simplicity. It would be almost impossible to clutter Leonard's music. It makes it very challenging to find just the right little nuances to imply the... environment for each of his songs. To enhance that, and make it visual.

Each of his songs is like a little event, a vignette, a dream... It's complete and unto itself. Leonard writes songs from moments of inspiration and he doesn't intellectualise them very much. He's totally uncompromising and he won't change what he does.

**MM:** Leonard mentioned to me that it was hard for him to find someone who could understand what he tried to do musically, before, since he wasn't trained musically.

**JL:** Well, I don't know how hard he looked. I mean, what he did in the past, he worked with people who are kind of similar to me, or I'm similar to them. John Simon, his first producer/musical director is very creative, very talented and quite a visual musician and very inspired. And Bob Johnston, who did the next couple of albums is the same way. Very sensitive.

And then, as far as I know, Leonard didn't record in the past three years... He probably just took a break. And then we sort of got together...

**MM:** You're a trained musician, right? I saw or, rather, heard it during the rehearsal today and from this latest of Leonard's recordings.

**JL:** Yeah. Pretty legitimate. Pretty legitimate. I went to college and studied at a music conservatory. I started out as a classical clarinetist. Then I started to play piano and started to get into pop music. My whole family are musicians. Even if I hadn't learned to read a note, I think I would have ended up with the same musical appreciation that I got.

**MM:** Do you think that the wedding of a classically trained musician and the raw musician like Leonard

**JL:** Oh, I think it works great because, whereas you call Leonard a "raw" musician, he's really an intuitive musician. His musical awareness is really acute. He can listen to something and find the real essence of it faster than most very well trained musicians can. And that's what a musician really is. His songs are not intellectualised. They are not overthought. When he writes music he doesn't approach his songs the way a legitimate composer would approach them, with a lot of careful melodic construction and inner cleverness. He presents a very simple and basic song, very much from the true folk tradition.

**MM:** Do you help with composing the music as well?

**JL:** No. No way. Occasionally, I will add to it in terms of writing or orchestrating an introduction or an interlude or something and I'll try and use motifs that he might use or imply or just melodic sense. I will never try and rewrite any of his music or do anything like that because it's usually one hundred percent correct. All you can do is enhance. You can't manipulate it.

**MM:** Do you often get, "What is Leonard Cohen really like?"

**JL:** [Laughs] All the time... Well, he's the easiest artist I've ever worked with. The easiest in terms of being totally without ego. Absolutely easy to communicate with in all ways. Very considerate and punctual. He's never difficult to get a hold of. He always does exactly what he says he's going to do. He's a very hard worker. A much harder worker than I am. I was always willing to quit earlier than he was and that's very unusual in someone who's supposed to be a big star. You expect a bit of temperament and eccentricity... I never met anyone like him. He's a teacher and he's a learner and he's a gem.

**MM:** Many people have an image of Leonard Cohen as mysterious, elusive – an image born out of his poetry and lyrics, perhaps. Is he like this in person?

**JL:** Yes... The great thing about Leonard is he gives you little gems all the time. Little zingers. Every line that he even speaks, even his analogies, are very small and simple and beautiful and often very ambiguous. He's very, very sensitive and he also is very careful to keep things contained, and to keep them on a poetic level. He's very stimulating by doing less than is expected and doing it beautifully.

He's also a man of opposites, conflicts and ambiguities. And that's what makes him have that image to the public of difficult to approach. He really is not difficult to approach at all. He's quite open. And... he's just vague enough to make the person he's with be very alive. He's a master. I've never met anyone like him really. Everyone who gets to know him finds Leonard attractive because he doesn't compete. And especially with women, he doesn't compete at all and he makes himself very vulnerable.

**MM:** [Approaching back up singer] I have a special love for back up singers. Amazing your range and versatility... and humility... I hope it's okay to bring you to the foreground here and ask you to introduce yourself?

**EMILY:** [Back-up singer] Hi, my name is Emily Bindiger. I'm from New York. I'm 19. Got long hair. I'm short and I sing loud. [Laughs] And I'm on five cuts on the album. And now I'm doing Leonard's tour in Europe.

**MM:** And you've been involved with Leonard's work for how long?

**EB:** For just about a year now. Last summer in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario I was in the production of _Sisters Of Mercy_ , then we did it off-Broadway.

**MM:** Does Leonard surprise you sometimes?

**EB:** Yeah, I think Leonard has a tendency to put his singing down. I enjoy his singing immensely. There's something about his vocal style, about his voice, that moves me very much... [Laughs] Not to tears, as Leonard might think.

I enjoy singing with Leonard, but... every so often Leonard will look at me and say, "What are the words to that song?" or "What key is it in?" and... yeah, that surprises me. The fact that Leonard sometimes forgets his own songs, you know. I know them backwards and forwards and it just surprises me.

**MM:** You know them backwards and forwards, and still you enjoy singing his songs every night.

**EB:** I've been what you call a Leonard Cohen freak since I was around fourteen. My sister introduced me to Leonard's music and from then on I just grabbed up all the albums. I felt that his music suited my voice and my personal style of singing. I could do as many embellishments as I wanted because I feel his music lends itself to that, lends itself to different people doing what they want with his music.

**MM:** You mean you can pour yourself into it?

**EB:** Very easily. I can put myself in some of the situations, make it a part of me. That's why I'm glad I'm going on tour now. I just get off on singing the music.

**LC:** [Entering the room] Do I have to leave for this interview?

**EB:** No. You can sit in.

**LC:** You can lie down on this bed, Emily... I think you need a pillow. Put your feet up here.

**EB:** [Laughs]

**LC:** I don't want you to feel left out when the action starts.

**EB:** And I enjoy working with Leonard.

**LC:** He's a prince.

**EB:** [Laughs]

**MM:** Do you write your own songs, Emily?

**EB:** I do... Last summer I started writing a song. It sounded exactly like Leonard's song. I just threw it out the window. It was like, really, a direct lift of one of his songs.

**LC:** Why didn't you give it to me, then? Why did you throw it out?

**EB:** Oh, I didn't throw it out. I just stuck it in a drawer. [Laughs]

**LC:** Which song of mine did it remind you of?

**EB:** Oh, I just heard 'Chelsea's Song'.

**LC:** Did you do the lyrics?

**EB:** Yeah, I did the lyrics. It even started with "I remember..." [Laughs]

**LC:** I think we should do this song.

**EB:** [Laughs]

**LC:** I found a song that I didn't even have to write that's my own.

New York, circa 1968. Roz Kelly / Getty

**MM:** [Laughs] Emily, you are nineteen years old and the music that your generation hears is hard rock, soft rock – quite different from Leonard's.

**EB:** I do my best to avoid loud and rocky music. I sort of go for the sound like Joni Mitchell, Gordie Lightfoot, David Bromberg. Very country, finger-picking, which is probably why I enjoy singing Leonard's music. [Strums guitar, and sings]

_It's four in the morning, the end of December_

_I'm writing you now just to see if you're better_

_New York is cold, but I like where I'm living_

_There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening_.

_I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert_

_You're living for nothing now_ ,

_I hope you're keeping some kind of record_.

_Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair_

_She said that you gave it to her_

_That night that you planned to go clear_

_Did you ever go clear?_

_Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older_

_Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder_

_You'd been to the station to meet every train_

_And you came home without Lili Marlene_

_And you treated my woman to a flake of your life_

_And when she came back she was nobody's wife_.

_Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth_

_One more thin gypsy thief_

_Well I see Jane's awake_

_She sends her regards_.

_And what can I tell you my brother, my killer_

_What can I possibly say?_

_I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you_

_I'm glad you stood in my way_.

_If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me_

_Well your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free_.

_Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes_

_I thought it was there for good so I never tried_.

_And Jane came by with a lock of your hair_

_She said that you gave it to her_

_That night that you planned to go clear_

_Sincerely a friend_

'Famous Blue Raincoat'

**MM:** Bravo, Emily!

**EB:** That's my favourite, my favourite song of Leonard's. I sang that song in _Sisters Of Mercy_ and every night there would be a different story in my head about what it means and the emotions it would evoke. They would stem from something different each night, each performance. Inevitably, on stage, I would end up hysterically crying at the end of the song. I think musically and lyrically, it's just beautiful.

**MM:** You sang it like a woman that lived ninety years, not only nineteen.

**EB:** I look more like twelve and I had to overcome it. [Laughs]

**LC:** I thought you were twelve.

**EB:** Sorry, Leonard.

**LC:** You are fired.

**MM:** Leonard, how do you feel when such a young person understands your song on this level?

**LC:** Oh, I've never thought of Emily as a young person.

**MM:** Emily, do you contribute to the arrangements of the songs?

**EB:** Yes. Quite a lot. Whenever I think of an idea, we end up just doing it. There's another girl doing the tour, Erin Dickins, and I say, "Let's try this", and if the musical director likes it, inevitably we keep it. Well, we improve on it, you know, because we get off on each other's creativity.

**MM:** I heard that you also vetoed one of Leonard's songs, like you decided that you didn't want to sing it.

**EB:** That's exactly what happened. We just looked at the chart of one of the songs and we said, "You want to do it?" "Nah, I don't want to do it." "You want to do it?" And it went around like that. We all decided that we just didn't want to do it and, you know, we wanted to throw the chart out the window actually in the middle of 18th Street in New York.

**MM:** Do you get a lot of, "What is Leonard really like?"

**EB:** [Laughs] I guess people expect me to say that he's all that he is reputed to be, from his poetry and from his songs. That he's this incredible lover with ninety million women on his side... [Laughs]

I don't know. Maybe he is like that. Certainly, in _Sisters Of Mercy_ that's what he was made out to be and a lot of people got freaked out by that. The critics thought that he was very narcissistic, and this whole self-love thing, the whole sex-oriented feeling that a lot of people have about him, I guess, it comes through in some parts of his work. But, as far as what Leonard's really like? He's really like Leonard...

**ERIN DICKINS** [Back-up singer – joins Emily, Leonard and Malka] The only thing Leonard demands of you is to create, not to copy things that happened. He's just happy if you're creating and making a mood. And—

**LC:** He's a prince.

**MM:** Leonard, Emily mentioned _Sisters Of Mercy_. How did you feel about that experience?

**LC:** Well, of course, I would have felt a lot better about it if it had been a smash hit and was still playing now and we'd sold a cast album. The fact that it folded after a few performances certainly does colour my feelings but, to tell you the truth, I'm glad that it folded, because I never really loved the show.

I was always having to make some kind of adjustment in my mind, some kind of rationalisation of why it might succeed or why it might be good.

I realised after the show had got underway that there were grave defects in it. And, in a sense, it didn't deserve to succeed and it's not one of those instances where I feel that the critics destroyed us, which they did, or that it was unjustifiably condemned. I feel that there was something lacking in the show and that it did not have that special kind of life, interior life, which would allow it to survive.

_Well they lay down beside me_ ,

_I made my confession to them_.

_They touched both my eyes_

_And I touched the dew on their hem_.

_If your life is a leaf_

_That the seasons tear off and condemn_

_They will bind you with love_

_That is graceful and green as a stem_.

_When I left they were sleeping_ ,

_I hope you run into them soon_.

_Don't turn on the lights_ ,

_You can read their address by the moon_.

_And you won't make me jealous_

_If I hear that they sweetened your night:_

_We weren't lovers like that_

_And besides it would still be all right_ ,

_We weren't lovers like that_

_And besides it would still be all right_.

'Sisters Of Mercy'

**MM:** You thought the criticism of _Sisters Of Mercy_ was justified, Leonard, but aside from that, does it bother you what critics say about your work?

**LC:** [Sings]

_And I thank you, I thank you. For doing your duty_.

_You keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty_.

_Your vision is right. My vision is wrong_.

_I'm sorry for smudging the air with my song_.

_Lalalalalala_

'A Singer Must Die'

**MM:** Touring, is sort of living a life of a gypsy, travelling all over the world. But always... Well, so far at least, you've always returned to Montreal. To Quebec of all places, at this time of all times?

**LC:** I have a little house in Montreal, a little family in the house, little garden, the corn is growing, the beans are growing up the stalks. I live on a nice little street. The children come in and we give them cookies. It's just nice here.

**MM:** Well, you make it sound so nice, yet not long ago you said that you feel like an immigrant in your own country.

**LC:** Did I say that?

**MM:** Yes.

**LC:** When did I say that? I don't remember saying that. It's true. I live on a street of immigrants. In any sense, I don't mean that in any self-suffering sense. I live on a street of immigrants. I live right on the dividing line between French and English Montreal and the kind of no-man's land where the Greeks and Portuguese live. And I feel that I belong in this particular section of the city. I guess I do feel like an immigrant.

**MM:** But it's almost a political statement for a major English/Canadian poet like you to live in Montreal, Quebec, these days. Are you politically oriented?

**LC:** I'm aware of who is governing me. I'm somewhat aware of what people want me to do. As for participating in that process, I have my own tiny avenues of participation.

**MM:** Which are?

**LC:** Well, on the most obvious level, I can vote. I can praise or condemn leaders or policies in my personal conversation. But, more important than that, I can, for myself – I don't just sway large masses of people one way or another toward political goals, but I can place certain values in the air, articulate them for myself and just let them stand there to maybe encourage a certain kind of behaviour or to impede another kind.

**MM:** Let me put it another way: your language of expression is English. You live nowadays in a Canadian province that has just passed a bill to have an official language which is French – only French. Even created an official language police to bar English in public discourse. How do you feel about it?

**LC:** I feel a little fine about that. It doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I don't see how a nation can survive without having a single language. It's a utopian idea to think that a nation can really have two languages.

I'm not talking about Canada. Canada isn't really a nation, so it can have as many languages as it wants. That's its great value and its great glory – that it really isn't a nation.

But Quebec really is a nation, in the sense that it's one people with one religion and one language and one kind of experience – all living together, six million of them in the same place. It's absolutely understandable that they should have their own language.

I would make another proposal. For instance, there are English people living in Quebec who also had a long experience over the generations, who don't speak another language, who have a common experience. Why should these people be compelled to suffer the extremities of a minority experience and this is exactly what the French Canadians have asked about themselves and answered, "No, why should we?" Why should the English, who share and associate with the large English-speaking culture of North America, and even the world, why should they be compelled to suddenly deal in French? They shouldn't. There's no reason why they should be.

There's only one solution. That's partition. Just as French Québec is a reality, there is another reality which nobody speaks of. And that is the reality of English Quebec. And for all the reasons that there should be a French Québec, there should be an English Quebec. And English Quebec should also be guaranteed. There's no reason why English Quebec should not be guaranteed and why its language and its experience should not be guaranteed.

Therefore, there should be a partition. Quebec should be partitioned right down St. Lawrence Boulevard. Everything west of St. Lawrence Boulevard, running right to Ottawa, should be English Quebec and should be guaranteed as English Quebec. And everything east of St. Lawrence Boulevard, that is right to the Atlantic Ocean, should be French Québec, and there should be no quarrel between these two peoples.

**MM:** People who are not in this room cannot see the smile on your face.

**LC:** Well, I'm serious about this, actually. I think that any French person will understand, after having their own experience in Quebec and somehow living the life of a minority people, when they themselves feel and are a majority. And there are cultural differences. Such things do exist and it's foolish not to validate these differences of cultural experience.

Well, the English in Quebec had a different cultural experience than the French and the English in other parts of Canada. That experience is valid and important and rich. And it should be guaranteed. And it should not be overwhelmed by legislation in Quebec. Nor should it be overwhelmed by legislation in Ottawa. It is a unique experience. And I myself want to protect it and encourage it. That's why I know that Quebec has to be partitioned. There has to be an English Quebec, with the same sense of sovereignty that French Québec has.

_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?_

'The Faith'

**MM:** When I listened to what we talked before, there seems to be a—

**LC:** What we said before.

**MM:** What we said before, oh God, one day I'll learn to speak English properly.

**LC:** You don't mind me correcting you, do you?

**MM:** No.

**LC:** You very rarely make a mistake.

**MM:** Ahhh, you don't hear it through my ears. [Laughs]. You'll be surprised what I hear... especially on the recording of our conversation. But at one point in the recording you were talking about self-improvement. Why this desire for self-improvement?

**LC:** No, it was your interest in self-improvement.

**MM:** Well, you mentioned it a few times, but to give you one example, you said that you quit smoking for self-improvement.

**LC:** I said that ironically. I don't know why I quit smoking. There is a reason why I quit smoking but it's very, very private. And I think that you can only quit smoking if you have a very, very private reason. I don't know if my reason is private enough to keep me away from tobacco indefinitely.

**MM:** You also mention in your poems and songs that...

**LC:** Do you have a cigarette?

**MM:** Oh no. [Laughs] No... In our recorded conversation as well as in your songs and poems you mention that...

**LC:** [Sings]

_The years go by_

_You lose your pride_

_The baby's crying_

_So you do not go outside_

The whole story is told in that song. In fact, everything that you asked me could be answered by the material. And anything I say outside the material has a dull and tedious ring to it. It would really be best to listen to the material itself, rather than question me to speak casually about these things.

**MM:** Well, it's precisely because I listened to the material itself, that I wonder why do you keep referring to yourself, or to the "I" in denigrating terms, if not derogatory: "greedy", "ugly" and–

**LC:** I never said I was ugly.

**MM:** "We are ugly but we have the music", you say in 'Chelsea Hotel' and "for this ugly hump at which you stare", in 'Avalanche' and in 'Please Don't Pass Me By' you go much further and say–

**LC:** Oh yes. Yes. I remember that. Look, if you're going to insist on holding me to these... You know... We're speaking now in a profane situation that, you know... Excuse me, I'm just scratching my pubic hair.

**MM:** [Laughs] I'm amusing you, I see, you can't stop smiling... But leaving all pubescent matters, do you remember saying, "Please understand. I never had a secret chart to get to the heart of this or any other matter"?

**LC:** [Sings]

_Please understand_.

Yes, I remember that.

**MM:** Poets have been regarded through the ages as prophets, or having the pulse on the truth, that's why I'm inclined to think that poets like you, do have "a secret chart to the heart of this or other matter". And in this context I wonder if I could run by you a few more words.

**LC:** Sure. Go right ahead.

Amsterdam, 1972. Gjisbert Hanekroot / Getty

**MM:** "Free" and "slave" are repeated frequently in your work...

**LC:** What about it?

**MM:** These words, as well as "greedy" and "begging", are words that are also repeated by the poets in the Jewish prayer book, and by prophets in the Bible—

**LC:** I'm dead, you know. I don't have any idea of "slave" or "free" now. I don't know what it means. I don't care what it means.

**MM:** Let me turn to your song 'Please Don't Pass Me By'. Here you renounce your dignity, your time, your courage. You say "take it all away. Everything. My style. Everything." What is left?

**LC:** Mmmmm. What is left. Search me. I never think about those things.

**MM:** So you mean that when you say it or when you write it or when you sing it, it's just come out – from where?

**LC:** [Long pause] Just the mind turns over.

**MM:** It obviously hasn't turned over to the word, joy...

**LC:** Joy. I just think of Bob Johnston's wife. Joy. He just mentioned her.

**MM:** But, seriously, when I listened to your records I was aware that joy was missing from your songs. Yet now that I met you, I see there's a lot of joy in you, as well as laughter, playfulness – even jousting with your interviewer.

**LC:** Too good.

**MM:** Thank you. [Laughs] But really, it amazes me that such a dominant aspect of your character is missing in your recordings, your songs.

**LC:** I agree completely. I think that there's an aspect that I've completely left out, and perhaps as I get better, I'll be able to include it.

**MM:** "Better"?

**LC:** As I master the possibilities of the work, I'll be able to treat more aspects of the diameter whatever it is... facets. A lot of the time, it's facets. I'll be able to treat more things, you know. Can't treat everything now. You just treat the things that are presented to you. You can't be too greedy in this racket. You treat whatever material is presented, and you try to keep yourself as open as possible, but there's no point in just scratching around at doors that don't yield.

**MM:** Here you mention "greed" again.

**LC:** Greed. Well, you're talking to one. One greedy fellow.

**MM:** You mention it quite a lot in your lyrics, poems, and prose.

**LC:** Yeah. I'm a greedy chap.

**MM:** In what way?

**LC:** Just in the way everybody understands. They shouldn't ask in what way. You know in what way. See, that's a very serious thing that I'm talking about now because... Everybody's so involved in deep and hidden meanings of everything that they are overlooking the obvious, as my teacher Hugh MacLennan used to say, "Never overlook the obvious". Or as another man said, "Learn to stop barely... at the surface".

I know what greed is and you know what greed is. Just like you know what war is and I know what war is. There's no need for us to interrupt the natural comprehension of words to try to discover and try to squeeze things so that it will disclose some other level of meaning. We know what things mean. And we should accept those meanings that are instantaneous and clear.

**MM:** Well, I'll tell you why I'm exploring this way or that, okay?

**LC:** Sure.

**MM:** First regarding "greed". Now that you've invited me to your home, I see it's quite humble, really, blue collar humble, let alone a world-renowned singer/poet/writer. So I suspect that you are so humble at heart that even the thought of an ambition or desire lends you the feel that you are greedy.

And as to why I'm exploring for clarifications... It's partly because... Well, when I was reading your work or listening to your songs, I seem to comprehend your work better with every part of my being except my head. And since I consider myself an intelligent person, I'd like to understand it with my head, as well as with the rest of my body.

**LC:** Well, I think Irving Layton said something to an interviewer who was interviewing me at the time. He happened to be present. He said something like this: "I don't think Leonard's mind has ever been violated by an idea". Something like that. I don't remember exactly what he said. But there's no point in bringing the mind into this. There's hardly any ideas in my work, any more than there's an idea in the buzz of a refrigerator. It's there, you know.

**MM:** Well, even if you repeat certain words sort of like repeating your preference of a black attire, it teased my curiosity, your most repeated... Let's take for another example, "nakedness" that I mentioned before, or "naked body", or, "Hey, won't you be naked for me?"

**LC:** Mmmm hummmm. Okay.

**MM:** [Laughs] When I see you sing, you seem to be—

**LC:** You see, in the mind, you're on top. You see, just talking about the mind puts me right on my back and exhausts me completely. I have no strength when I deal with the mind.

**MM:** Okay, perhaps it's best to pause now, or stop...

**LC:** From another point of view...

**MM:** [Laughs nervously as suddenly, in a flash, his hand sneaks under her skirt and up her thighs] No, oh, God, Leonard, please! That's not... [Moves his hand away]

**LC:**...And there's another possibility. I get my energy back, you see? I have other options and other ways to look at things and I get my energy back, see?

**MM:** So let's talk about sex then.

**LC:** No.

**MM:** I'd like to turn to – Leonard, please! [Laughs nervously as Leonard's hand shoots again under her skirt, while both her hands are occupied with the recording device] This is ridiculous.

**LC:** See, that's the only way I can keep my energy going and... You know, I notice that my energy has been slowly leaking away because I was trying to, you know, be a sort of respectful, nice chap during the interview. You know what I mean?

**MM:** You call this respectful? [Laughs]

**LC:** The fact is that... I'm only interested in intimacy. You ought to get a tape recording of me eating you.

**MM:** Pardon?

**LC:** You ought to get a tape recording of me eating you.

**MM:** I'd rather have that experience, forget tape recording it. [Laughs]

**LC:** You know, we could play that.

**MM:** Okay, let's do it... [Laughs]

**LC:** I don't know. You're very good. You're really a first-rate interviewer. But I can't... The last thing I want to talk about is myself. I have no interest in the subject at all.

**MM:** All right. Let's talk about something other than yourself. Let's talk about another major subject addressed in your poetry and songs; the society that you live in...

**LC:** God, I don't know anything about it.

**MM:** Well, in one of your songs, one among my favourites, 'The Story Of Isaac', you maintained that it is about one generation influencing or affecting another generation. I understood it to be about the Covenant.

**LC:** It's not a matter... See, it's... My brain just isn't up to answering these questions. I mean, I understand that these questions have a life of their own and that they have a hunger of their own and that they insist on being answered. But, you know, I feel I'm chomping through my brain, and I wish I could give a proper response to them.

**MM:** Why is it that in your poetry and songs you talk about yourself and the society that you and I live in, but here you don't?

**LC:** I don't know why that is but... You know, there's no point in wearing a diving suit, and one of those big lead helmets, if you're not diving under the sea. If you know what I mean?

**MM:** No, I'm sorry.

**LC:** You know, it's crazy to wear one of those big heavy diving suits to sit in a café and drink coffee.

**MM:** Okay, we'll go to something that doesn't require heavy diving gear.

**LC:** Okay.

**MM:** Okay, let's return to "your naked body" that is mentioned many, many times in your lyrics and poems, or "Hey, won't you be naked for me?" or "nakedness". And in your music, also, there is a sort of nakedness, a sparseness. And in your stage performances as well, you seem stripped of ego, really, quite naked, beautifully naked...

**LC:** Tell me more.

**MM:** [Laughs] Do you feel naked when you sing?

**LC:** Only when I don't have my clothes on.

**MM:** [Laughs] You know what I mean.

**LC:** No. You see, I'm a hard-bitten professional. I'm a stone professional. I'm not some trembling youth who just picked up his harp. I go from stage to stage and I sing my songs and I do it the best that I possibly can.

**MM:** That would be very hard to believe for a person who heard you sing 'Please Don't Pass Me By'.

**LC:** That's true. Occasionally... When I say "professional", I don't mean something that is cold and unfeeling and automatic. I mean someone who is prepared to take the risks of the evening without making any excuses for them, whether they're good or whether they're bad. And occasionally, something remarkable happens, and occasionally, something disastrous happens. From time to time there will be a real exposure, and a real intimacy and a real surprise for everybody concerned, and sometimes there will be just the professional rendering that meets the standards of the evening and of the profession – so that occasionally something wonderful happens and then occasionally something dull happens.

_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_.

_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_.

'Please Don't Pass Me By (A Disgrace)'

Atlanta, 1974. Tom Hill / Getty
**In Leonard's Study**

* * *

"ALL THE ANSWERS ARE HERE"

**MM:** Let me turn to this quote attributed to you: "I don't think of myself being a writer, a singer or whatever, the occupation of being a man is so much more."

**LC:** Yeah, I remember I did say that. When did I say that? A while ago?

**MM:** Well, your last interview, as far as I know, was about a year ago, so it was definitely more than a year ago.

**LC:** I don't exactly know what I'm getting at, though I do recognise the first part of the statement that I don't... I don't assault myself with those kinds of description of my activities when I get up... I mean, at my work I consider myself that kind of worker. I think what I was trying to say is that it is hard enough to keep life and limb together these days without burdening yourself with a particular description of who you are. But in a sense we are amateurs and dilettantes, and this notion of getting by and having to examine all possibilities, rather than meet every situation as a singer, as a writer, as a poet.

**MM:** I took it to mean, when you said "the occupation of being a man", what in Yiddish is called: a mentch.

**LC:** Oh that's right. That's a good one. That's a good way to look at it, I think maybe I meant that. I don't remember what I meant. I know I was trying to press home some sort of point at the time.

**MM:** Just to clarify, what means a mentch to you? A moral human being? A decent man?

**LC:** I have tremendous resistance describing ideal archetypes. I think there are so many different ways of getting by and I wouldn't like to contribute to any of the tyrannies by adding my own version of what excellent behaviour might constitute...

**MM:** I meant it in terms of the personal, not in the definitive or abstract general.

**LC:** I don't know. That activity has been somewhat unconscious for me. I somehow... I think... I'm convinced that I'm a man. And I'm not quite sure what a manly position on the things I confront is. You know... I trust that my activities could be described as manly.

**MM:** Returning to _Slaves_ , did you really feel that you were dying... as a poet, as an artist, when you wrote _Slaves_?

**LC:** I don't know. I don't speak of these things outside of the work. Whatever is there is in the voice and... I really have no interest in being my own footnote.

**MM:** There is so much bitterness in _Slaves_ and the tone of voice is almost like a fallen idol.

**LC:** Well, I'm trying to treat all the experiences that I know, and maybe when the stuff is finished, and there's a lot of work to look into, maybe one will be able to find all the various aspects represented. As I say, I take the material that is offered me. I don't sit down and plan, "I'm going to write a bitter book. I'm going to write a lyric song." You take the material that is at hand, if it's your habit to work this way. See, look at all that pile of stuff. I don't know what the tone of that book that is emerging out of that pile of manuscript – I don't know what the tone is right now. I'm not even interested in what the tone is. I'd like to be surprised by whatever emerges, will represent my condition at the moment. It's not like an astrological chart, you know.

**MM:** Before your book _The Energy Of Slaves_ was published, I read somewhere that you had some apprehensions of publishing it.

**LC:** Sure. I always have some reservations about my work. I'm never sure, you know, whether it's worthwhile putting it on the marketplace. I go from the feeling that this book shouldn't be published to the feeling that it's absolutely required reading for everyone.

[Shuffles papers, flips pages]

Listen to this:

_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_

That song was begun in 1966 and was finished in '74. Here are all the versions of it, different. [Shuffles paper]... But this is the first version of it, here...

No, wait. It was in here. This notebook here. Here's a picture of me in 1968, Athens.

**MM:** You look different now. More handsome.

**LC:** [Flips pages] And this draft was written in New York City at the Chelsea Hotel.

This was written at the Grand Bretagne in Athens. A change in my material condition.

_There's a girl in Montreal in 1969..._

[All the while shuffling through papers]

There's a projected list of titles last winter before it had become the record.

Here are various versions that I thought would be in it but never did arrive at the song. Different versions.

Let's see, 1966 to 1972 is six years. 1974 is eight years. This song's been on my mind for eight years. Here, last summer, the last version, "For all the longing on my tongue". There it is. I'm glad to get rid of that song. I even had a file made on that song.

**MM:** Once you finish a song or a poem do you sometimes feel like doing it over?

**LC:** If I didn't abandon that song, I would keep on repairing it over and over again. It's just endless jiggling. [Flips pages]

_I could not trade you for a nightingale_.

_I could not trade you for a hammered golden bird_.

_You took away my music_.

_You sent me here with blunted tongue to listen only_.

_Someone is playing a grand piano with two hands_.

_Someone is whispering to her shepherd_.

_I never got to wear my high leather boots_.

_I never became a sign for everything that is high and nervous_.

_You entered me into a quarrel with a woman and you said_ ,

_This is your voice. I never got to build the barn_.

_Only once did I ride with Kid Marley_.

_The band ran down like an unwound music box, too slow and too sweet_.

_A fungus became attached to the spirit of song and high pretensions infected the gift of words_.

_I believe what they said about me_.

_Someone has begun to squeeze the old accordion_.

_I am forbidden to murder him_.

_You are not listening to me_.

_You are fiddling in your pocket_.

_Someone is performing the national dance_.

_The patriots have gathered round_.

_Thank you, sir. Bless you, sir_.

_You were so beautiful as a woman_.

_You were so beautiful as a song_.

_You are so ugly as a god_.

**MM:** Oh, God... I'm not familiar with... What is it you were reading to me?

**LC:** I don't know. I'm reading to you from something I wrote last winter. It seems better to read to you in response to questions than to manufacture my own. Now, you can ask me any question now, and I will be able to answer it from this book.

**MM:** Alright, I'll gladly pick up your challenge and roll with it. How do you write?

**LC:** Let me think.

**MM:** You're thinking, Leonard, the mind is at work.

**LC:** I mean, let me search through these pages... There is an answer here. What was the question again? How I write?

**MM:** Yes.

**LC:** You ask me how I write. This is how I write. _I get rid of the lizard. I eschew the philosopher's stone. I bury my girlfriend. I remove my personality from the line so that I am permitted to use the word "I" as many times as I want without offending my appetite for modesty. Then I resign. I do errands for my mother, or someone like her. I eat too much. I blame those closest to me for ruining my talent. Then you come to me. The joyous news is mine_.

The answers are all here... You see?... You can ask me any question, and I will be able to answer it from this book.

**MM:** Okay, let me see if I can come up with something that demands a straight mundane answer rather than sublime poetry. Like, are you married, Leonard?

**LC:** No, but I have a wife.

**MM:** How is that?

**LC:** _Hurry to your dinner_.

_Hurry to your food_.

_Finish feeble prayer, stonework, golem duties toward the woman being born_.

_Hurry to the thigh in your plate and the cloudy city_.

_Lean over your round world_.

_Cut off rusty talk with the unfucked woman, the unconvinced friend_ ,

_The countless uncertain universes, avoid diplomacy with them_.

_Hurry to your appetite_.

_Hurry to your birthright and the night of long knives and grease_.

_Hurry, worker in the realms of song_.

_Hurry, angel, covered spirit, minstrel of my greasy pilgrimage_.

_And hurry back to the warm bed where she is sleeping, where it is dark, her face turned away_ ,

_And you meet in half sleep, kind to each other as if newly met_.

_Sleep against her back, your arm across her waist, your hand under her breast_.

_Until she thrashes in her sleep_.

_The flies walk over your face_.

_She does not know how to make you comfortable_.

_She never has_.

_Hurry to sleep_.

_Find a way to get upstairs_.

_The bells have rung, the faithful are breathing frankincense_.

_In a crack of the wood shutters the morning has begun_.

_Hurry to your stretched-out nakedness and to lightly touch yourself_

_As will some time the woman being born_.

_Jiggle your knees, mind worker, hurry through your testament_.

_Invent your song_.

_Invent your power_.

_Hurry to be born in the bed beside her_.

_Hurry to the fish hook swimmer_.

_Hurry to your destiny_.

_Hurry to your cunt_.

_Hurry to your vision of God_.

_Time is like an arrow_.

_Hurry to the bank_.

_Hurry to your unborn children_.

_Hurry to your thin body and your suntan_.

_Then the slugs will dance, the pure night sky will not mock you_.

_Hurry to your discipline and your bland regime_.

_Move faster than the stain, the fat, the disappointed heart_.

_Hurry to the peanut butter and the cool summer drink_.

_Hurry to your miracle_.

_Hurry to the empty stomach, the victory fast, the unbuilt temple_.

_Wake her up and quarrel in your bed_.

_Eat together through the dark_.

_Seize the round world and stop it from struggling and plant your mouth in the burnt skin_.

_I am your dead voice_.

**MM:** Oh, that's powerful, great!

**LC:** This is really great... Ask me any question...

**MM:** Is this for your next book?

**LC:** Don't know what will become of this. Seems to go on. This is a good way to answer questions.

**MM:** I notice that this is very clean. Is this the first draft?

**LC:** Yes, this is just the first draft. Something I had no idea what this is, or what it's meant to become. I just lock myself in a room for a few hours every day, and produce this... This is good. This is really wonderful. All the answers are here.

**MM:** When was the last time you looked at what you were just reading?

**LC:** In fact, I never looked at it. So I think this is maybe the first time I've ever read it. I think maybe I read it through once, shortly after I did it last winter.

**MM:** How do you feel about reading it now?

**LC:** It's got all the answers in it, ask me any question and I will be able to answer it from this book.

**MM:** Okay, let's see... Try to find something far out... What is utopia for you?

**LC:** _I said, Because it is so horrible between us_ ,

_I will go and stop Egypt's bullet_.

_Trumpets and a curtain of razor blades_.

_Organ music_.

_She said, That's beautiful_.

_Then I can commit suicide and the child falls into strangers' hands_.

_The radio said, He helped a lot of people but the good, they do die young_ ,

_I just looked around and he was gone_.

_I said. She said. The monstrosities of Lilith attack her_.

_Yug, yug, yug, she said_.

_What you did to me, she said_.

_What you did to me, I said_.

_The lonely, we said_.

_The nights of hands on ourselves_.

_Your unkindness, we said_.

_Your greed_.

_Your unkindness_.

_Your bitter tongue_.

_Give me time_.

_You never learn_.

_Your ancestors_.

_My ancestors_.

_Fuck you, I said_.

_You shit_.

_Stop screaming_.

_I can't stand it_.

_You can't stand anything_.

_Nobody can live like this_.

_In front of the child_.

_Let him learn_.

_This is no good_.

_You're fuckin right, it's no good_.

_This kitchen was once beautiful_.

_Oil lamps, order, the set table_.

_Sabbath observed_.

_That's what I want_.

_You don't want it_.

_You don't know what I want_.

_You don't know anything about me_.

_You never did_.

_Not in the beginning_.

_Not now_.

_In the realms, where this marriage was sealed, where the wedding feast goes on and on_ ,

_Where Adam and Eve face one another_ ,

_The foundations are faultless and secure_ ,

_Your beast's hair flairs like black fire upward and your breasts, now in maidenhood_ ,

_Now in motherhood, draw down my face_ ,

_Our hunger blessed by sun and moon_ ,

_A ring of dancers round the house_

_Where within the room is hid_ ,

_Where within the bed is undone_ ,

_Whereupon the hunger's joined_ ,

_Where within the one speaks himself expressions yet unknown_.

**MM:** This is your take of utopia for the world? For society?

**LC:** This is the world.

**MM:** Do you make note of when you wrote it?

**LC:** Sure I do, but I would never tell you. Maybe it would pin me down.

**MM:** Oh no, I wasn't thinking of it in this way.

**LC:** [Flipping pages]

**MM:** I think you're surprised by these poems.

**LC:** I haven't looked at these for a long time. I think it was only the other night that I went through them.

**MM:** What do you think of them?

**LC:** _The blind man loves you with his eyes, the deaf man with his music_.

_The hospital, the battlefield, the torture room must serve you with numberless petitioners_.

_On this most ordinary night, so bearable, so plentiful in grave distractions_ ,

_Touch this worthless ink, this work of shame_.

_Inform me from the great height of your beauty_.

_This is the night of July 8, 1972_.

[Strumming guitar]

**MM:** Leonard.

**LC:** Yes.

**MM:** I was trying to say the other day that you portray yourself in your work as ugly, yet I find you beautiful in real life.

**LC:** I find you beautiful too.

**MM:** You meant it metaphorically in 'Chelsea Hotel', or is it...

**LC:** [Sings]

_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_

_And then you got away, didn't you babe_

_You just turned your back on the crowd_

_But you got away_

_I never once heard you say_

_I need you, I don't need you_

_I need you, I don't need you_

_And all of that jiving around_

**MM:** You know your song, 'Lover Lover Lover'...

**LC:** Yes.

**MM:** I find it strange in a way that the verses are so hard and biting, and the refrain is so soft and inviting.

**LC:** That's a poem you just made there.

**MM:** Do you believe in—

**LC:** [Sings] _I believe in music. I believe in love_.

**MM:** Do you?

Isle of Wight, 1970. Michael Putland / Getty

**LC:** [Flipping pages]

_How to speak poetry. Take the word "butterfly". To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items, people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, tremble, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you speak about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material_.

_What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled orgasm. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows that you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet_.

1972. Getty

[Strums guitar]

_Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because they know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. This is bad sex. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life up to this very moment. The bombs, the flame-throwers, and all the shit have destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you think your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on_.

_This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These poems were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy. Be good whores. These poems are not slogans. They cannot advertise you. They cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a femme fatale. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition. Speak these words with the exact passion with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression around the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them. This is a very difficult thing to do. The poems are nothing but information. They are the Constitution of the inner country. If you declaim them and blow them up with noble intentions and histrionics, then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club or the National Geographic Society. These people know all about the risks of mountain climbing. They honor you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it, this is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps and sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event, but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not in the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence_.

_Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. Do not be a bright thing on the stage. Read Hamlet's speech to the players_.

**MM:** Was 'How To Speak Poetry'... was this in regard to the _Sisters Of Mercy_ show?

**LC:** Yeah, that was something I wrote to the actors. But while I feel a lot of that was justified in terms of the kind of acting that was being done, I was also writing that to myself in terms of my own kinds of performances, both in ordinary living and on the stage.

**MM:** What do you think you'll do in the future when you are really old?

**LC:** Well, I'd like to get a little chicken farm, maybe in South Dakota.

**MM:** [Laughs] Any projects of work, aside from raising chickens?

**LC:** I do have a lot of plans. But I found that the less you talk about your plans, the more chance you have of having them come into being.

[Flipping pages] This is great... Really wonderful... Ask me anything you want... All the answers to your questions are here... All the answers are here...

1967. Jack Robinson / Getty

**Songs Of Leonard Cohen**

* * *

DECEMBER 27, 1967
COLUMBIA

**Suzanne**

**Master Song**

**Winter Lady**

**The Stranger Song**

**Sisters Of Mercy**

**So Long, Marianne**

**Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye**

**Stories Of The Street**

**Teachers**

**One of Us Cannot Be Wrong**

**Suzanne**

* * *

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she's half crazy

But that's why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges

That come all the way from China

And just when you mean to tell her

That you have no love to give her

Then she gets you on her wavelength

And she lets the river answer

That you've always been her lover

And you want to travel with her

And you want to travel blind

And you know that she will trust you

For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

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.

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 harbor

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.

**Master Song**

* * *

I believe that you heard your master sing

When I was sick in bed

I suppose that he told you everything

That I keep locked away in my head

Your master took you traveling

Well at least that's what you said

And now do you come back to bring

Your prisoner wine and bread?

You met him at some temple where

They take your clothes at the door

He was just a numberless man in a chair

Who'd 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 some time before.

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.

And 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

And an ape with angel glands

Erased the final wisps of pain

With the music of rubber bands.

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

Oh now you hear your master sing

Your shirt is all undone.

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

No I can't make out what your master said

Before he made you go.

Then 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

To 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, you want too much

Let's say you came back some time too soon.

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'd do.

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

And now do you come back to bring

Your prisoner wine and bread?

**Winter Lady**

* * *

Trav'ling lady stay awhile

Until the night is over

I'm just a station on your way

I know I'm not your lover.

Well I lived with a child of snow

When I was a soldier

And I fought every man for her

Until the nights grew colder.

She used to wear her hair like you

Except when she was sleeping

And then she'd weave it on a loom

Of smoke and gold and breathing.

And why are you so quiet now

Standing there in the doorway

You chose your journey long before

You came upon this highway.

Trav'ling lady stay awhile

Until the night is over

I'm just a station on your way

I know I'm not your lover.

1967. Jack Robinson

**The Stranger Song**

* * *

It's true that all the men you knew were dealers

Who said they were through with dealing

Every time you gave them shelter

I know that kind of man

It's hard to hold the hand of anyone

Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender

Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.

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.

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.

But now another stranger seems

To want you to ignore his dreams

As though they were the burden of some other

O you've seen that man before

His golden arm dispatching cards

But now it's rusted from the elbows to the finger

And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter

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

Ah you hate to see another tired man

Lay down his hand

Like he was giving up the holy game of poker

And while he talks his dreams to sleep

You notice there's a highway

That is curling up like smoke above his shoulder

It is curling just like smoke above his shoulder.

You tell him to come in sit down

But something makes you turn around

The door is open you can't close your shelter

You try the handle of the road

It opens do not be afraid

It's you my love, you who are the stranger

It's you my love, you who are the stranger.

Well I've been waiting, I was sure

We'd meet between the trains we're waiting for

I think it's time to board another

Please understand I never had a secret chart

To get me to the heart of this

Or any other matter

When he talks like this you don't know what he's after

When he speaks like this you don't know what he's after.

Let's meet tomorrow if you choose

Upon the shore beneath the bridge

That they are building on some endless river

Then he leaves the platform

For the sleeping car that's warm

You realize he's only advertising one more shelter

And it comes to you, he never was a stranger

And you say OK the bridge or someplace later.

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.

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

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

**Sisters Of Mercy**

* * *

Oh the sisters of mercy they are not departed or gone

They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on

And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song

Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been traveling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control

It begins with your family but soon it comes around to your soul

Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned

When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned.

Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them

They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn

They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon

Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon

And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.

**So Long, Marianne**

* * *

Come over to the window my little darling

I'd like to try to read your palm

I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy

Before I let you take me home.

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

Well you know that I love to live with you

But you make me forget so very much

I forget to pray for the angels

And then the angels forget to pray for us.

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

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.

Oh so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

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.

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

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.

Oh so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

Oh you are 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.

Oh so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

**Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye**

* * *

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 now it's come to distances and both of us must try

Your eyes are soft with sorrow

Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

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.

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.

**Stories Of The Street**

* * *

The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh

The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas

And I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose

Yes, one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.

I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come

The cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone

But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk

All these hunters who are shrieking now, oh do they speak for us?

And where do all these highways go, now that we are free

Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me

O lady with your legs so fine, O stranger at your wheel

You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.

The age of lust is giving birth and both the parents ask

The nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass

And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite

And one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.

O come with me my little one, we will find that farm

And grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm

And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am

O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl

I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky

And lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

**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?

**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.

New York, circa 1968. Roz Kelly / Getty

**Songs From A Room**

* * *

APRIL 7, 1969
COLUMBIA

**Bird On The Wire**

**Story Of Isaac**

**A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes**

**The Partisan**

**Seems So Long Ago, Nancy**

**The Old Revolution**

**The Butcher**

**You Know Who I Am**

**Lady Midnight**

**Tonight Will Be Fine**

**Bird On The Wire**

* * *

Like a bird on the wire

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free

Like a worm on a hook

Like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind

I hope that you can just let it go by

If I, if I have been untrue

I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn

Like a beast with his horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me

But I swear by this song

And by all that I have done wrong

I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch

He said to me "You must not ask for so much."

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door

She cried to me "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

**Story Of Isaac**

* * *

The door it opened slowly

My father he came in

I was nine years old

And he stood so tall above me

His blue eyes they were shining

And his voice was very cold.

He said "I've had a vision

And you know I'm strong and holy

I must do what I've been told."

So he started up the mountain

I was running, he was walking

And his axe was made of gold.

Well the trees they got much smaller

The lake a lady's mirror

We stopped to drink some wine

Then he threw the bottle over

Broke a minute later

And he put his hand on mine.

Thought I saw an eagle

But it might have been a vulture

I never could decide

Then my father built an altar

He looked once behind his shoulder

He knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now

To sacrifice these children

You must not do it anymore

A scheme is not a vision

And you never have been tempted

By a demon or a god.

You who stand above them now

Your hatchets blunt and bloody

You were not there before

When I lay upon a mountain

And my father's hand was trembling

With the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now

Forgive me if I inquire

"Just according to whose plan?"

When it all comes down to dust

I will kill you if I must

I will help you if I can.

When it all comes down to dust

I will help you if I must

I will kill you if I can.

And mercy on our uniform

Man of peace or man of war

The peacock spreads his fan.

**A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes**

* * *

A bunch of lonesome and very quarrelsome heroes

Were smoking out along the open road

The night was very dark and thick between them

Each man beneath his ordinary load

"I'd like to tell my story"

Said one of them so young and bold

"I'd like to tell my story

Before I turn into gold."

But no one really could hear him

The night so dark and thick and green

Well I guess that these heroes must always live there

Where you and I have only been.

Put out your cigarette my love

You've been alone too long

And some of us are very hungry now

To hear what it is you've done that was so wrong.

I sing this for the crickets

I sing this for the army

I sing this for your children

And for all who do not need me

"I'd like to tell my story"

Said one of them so bold

"Oh yes, I'd like to tell my story

'Cause you know I feel I'm turning into gold."

1967. Jack Robinson / Getty

**Seems So Long Ago, Nancy**

* * *

It seems so long ago

Nancy was alone

Looking at The Late Late Show

Through a semi-precious stone.

In the House of Honesty

Her father was on trial

In the House of Mystery

There was no one at all

There was no one at all.

It seems so long ago

None of us were strong

Nancy wore green stockings

And she slept with everyone.

She never said she'd wait for us

Although she was alone

I think she fell in love for us

In nineteen sixty one

In nineteen sixty one.

It seems so long ago

Nancy was alone

A forty five beside her head

An open telephone.

We told her she was beautiful

We told her she was free

But none of us would meet her in

The House of Mystery

The House of Mystery.

And now you look around you

See her everywhere

Many use her body

Many comb her hair

In the hollow of the night

When you are cold and numb

You hear her talking freely then

She's happy that you've come

She's happy that you've come.

**The Old Revolution**

* * *

I finally broke into the prison

I found my place in the chain

Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows

All the brave young men

They're waiting now to see a signal

Which some killer will be lighting for pay.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

You whom I cannot betray.

I fought in the old revolution

On the side of the ghost and the King

Of course I was very young

And I thought that we were winning

I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing

As they carry the bodies away.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

You whom I cannot betray.

Lately you've started to stutter

As though you had nothing to say

To all of my architects let me be traitor

Now let me say I myself gave the order

To sleep and to search and to destroy.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

You whom I cannot betray.

Yes, you who are broken by power

You who are absent all day

You who are kings for the sake of your children's story

The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money

The hand of your lover is clay.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

You whom I cannot betray.

**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.

**You Know Who I Am**

* * *

I cannot follow you, my love

You cannot follow me.

I am the distance you put between

All of the moments that we will be.

You know who I am

You've stared at the sun

Well, I am the one who loves

Changing from nothing to one.

Sometimes I need you naked

Sometimes I need you wild

I need you to carry my children in

And I need you to kill a child.

You know who I am

You've stared at the sun

Well, I am the one who loves

Changing from nothing to one.

If you should ever track me down

I will surrender there

And I will leave with you one broken man

Whom I will teach you to repair.

You know who I am

You've stared at the sun

Well, I am the one who loves

Changing from nothing to one.

I cannot follow you, my love

You cannot follow me.

I am the distance you put between

All of the moments that we will be.

You know who I am

You've stared at the sun

Well, I am the one who loves

Changing from nothing to one.

**Lady Midnight**

* * *

I came by myself to a very crowded place

I was looking for someone who had lines in her face

I found her there but she was past all concern

I asked her to hold me, I said "Lady, unfold me"

But she scorned me and she told me

I was dead and I could never return.

Well, I argued all night like so many have before

Saying "Whatever you give me, I seem to need so much more"

Then she pointed at me where I kneeled on her floor

She said "Don't try to use me or slyly refuse me

Just win me or lose me

It is this that the darkness is for."

I cried "Oh, Lady Midnight, I fear that you grow old

The stars eat your body and the wind makes you cold."

"If we cry now," she said, "it will just be ignored."

So I walked through the morning, sweet early morning

I could hear my lady calling

"You've won me, you've won me, my lord

You've won me, you've won me, my lord

Yes, you've won me, you've won me, my lord

Ah, you've won me, you've won me, my lord

Ah, you've won me, you've won me, my lord."

**Tonight Will Be Fine**

* * *

Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past

We swore to each other then that our love would surely last

You kept right on loving, I went on a fast

Now I am too thin and your love is too vast

But I know from your eyes

And I know from your smile

That tonight will be fine

Will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

For a while.

I choose the rooms that I live in with care

The windows are small and the walls almost bare

There's only one bed and there's only one prayer

I listen all night for your step on the stair

But I know from your eyes

And I know from your smile

That tonight will be fine

Will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

For a while.

Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me

She's the soft naked lady love meant her to be

And she's moving her body so brave and so free

If I've got to remember that's a fine memory

And I know from her eyes

And I know from her smile

That tonight will be fine

Will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

For a while.

* * *

The live version included on _Live Songs_ (1973) contains two additional stanzas:

I've looked into the mirrors in numberless places

They all smile back at me with their troublesome faces

And the cards that they dealt me, there weren't any aces

And the horses never listen to me at the races

But I know from your eyes

And I know from your pretty little smile

That tonight, tonight will be fine

Will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

For a while.

There's still one or two of us walking the street

No arrows of direction painted under our feet

No angels to warn us away from the heat

And no honey to keep us where it is sweet

But I know from your eyes

And I know from your pretty little smile

That tonight, tonight will be fine

Will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

For a while.

And I know from your eyes

And I know from your pretty little smile

That tonight will be fine

Will be fine, will be fine, will be fine

For a while.

* * *

'The Partisan': words by Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie, music by Anna Marly. Translation from the French by Hy Zaret.

London, 1970. Barry Plummer

**Songs Of Love And Hate**

* * *

MARCH 19, 1971
COLUMBIA

**Avalanche**

**Last Year's Man**

**Dress Rehearsal Rag**

**Diamonds In The Mine**

**Love Calls You By Your Name**

**Famous Blue Raincoat**

**Sing Another Song, Boys**

**Joan Of Arc**

**Avalanche**

* * *

Well I stepped into an avalanche

It covered up my soul

When I am not this hunchback that you see

I sleep beneath the golden hill

You who wish to conquer pain

You must learn, learn to serve me well.

You strike my side by accident

As you go down for your gold

The cripple here that you clothe and feed

Is neither starved nor cold

He does not ask for your company

Not at the centre, the centre of the world.

When I am on a pedestal

You did not raise me there

Your laws do not compel me

To kneel grotesque and bare

I myself am the pedestal

For this ugly hump at which you stare.

You who wish to conquer pain

You must learn what makes me kind

The crumbs of love that you offer me

They're the crumbs I've left behind

Your pain is no credential here

It's just the shadow, shadow of my wound.

I have begun to long for you

I who have no greed

I have begun to ask for you

I who have no need

You say you've gone away from me

But I can feel you when you breathe.

Do not dress in those rags for me

I know you are not poor

You don't love me quite so fiercely now

When you know that you are not sure

It is your turn, beloved

It is your flesh that I wear.

**Last Year's Man**

* * *

The rain falls down on last year's man

That's a jew's harp on the table

That's a crayon in his hand

And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled

Far past the stems of thumbtacks

That still throw shadows on the wood

And the skylight is like skin for a drum I'll never mend

And all the rain falls down, amen

On the works of last year's man.

I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark

Oh one by one she had to tell them

That her name was Joan of Arc.

I was in that army, yes I stayed a little while

I want to thank you, Joan of Arc

For treating me so well

And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight

All these wounded boys you lie beside

Goodnight, my friends, goodnight.

I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived

Bethlehem the bridegroom

Babylon the bride.

Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me

And Bethlehem inflamed us both

Like the shy one at some orgy

And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil

That I had to draw aside to see

The serpent eat its tail.

Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain

So I hang upon my altar

And I hoist my axe again.

And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began

When Jesus was the honeymoon

And Cain was just the man

And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin

That the wilderness is gathering

All its children back again.

The rain falls down on last year's man

An hour has gone by

And he has not moved his hand

But everything will happen if he only gives the word

The lovers will rise up

And the mountains touch the ground

But the skylight is like skin for a drum I'll never mend

And all the rain falls down, amen

On the works of last year's man.

**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.

**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.

(You tell them now)

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.

**Love Calls You By Your Name**

* * *

You thought that it could never happen

To all the people that you became

Your body lost in legend, the beast so very tame.

But here, right here

Between the birthmark and the stain

Between the ocean and your open vein

Between the snowman and the rain

Once again, once again

Love calls you by your name.

The women in your scrapbook

Whom you still praise and blame

You say they chained you to your fingernails

And you climb the halls of fame.

Oh but here, right here

Between the peanuts and the cage

Between the darkness and the stage

Between the hour and the age

Once again, once again

Love calls you by your name.

Shouldering your loneliness

Like a gun that you will not learn to aim

You stumble into this movie house

Then you climb, you climb into the frame.

Yes, and here, right here

Between the moonlight and the lane

Between the tunnel and the train

Between the victim and his stain

Once again, once again

Love calls you by your name.

I leave the lady meditating

On the very love which I, I do not wish to claim.

I journey down the hundred steps

But the street is still the very same.

And here, right here

Between the dancer and his cane

Between the sailboat and the drain

Between the newsreel and your tiny pain

Once again, once again

Love calls you by your name.

Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne?

Where are the paths your heroes came?

Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away

Was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?

Oh here, come over here

Between the windmill and the grain

Between the sundial and the chain

Between the traitor and her pain

Once again, once again

Love calls you by your name.

**Famous Blue Raincoat**

* * *

It's four in the morning, the end of December

I'm writing you now just to see if you're better

New York is cold, but I like where I'm living

There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert

You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair

She said that you gave it to her

That night that you planned to go clear

Did you ever go clear?

Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older

Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder

You'd been to the station to meet every train

And you came home without Lili Marlene

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life

And when she came back she was nobody's wife.

Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth

One more thin gypsy thief

Well I see Jane's awake

She sends her regards.

And what can I tell you my brother, my killer

What can I possibly say?

I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you

I'm glad you stood in my way.

If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me

Your enemy is sleeping and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes

I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair

She said that you gave it to her

That night that you planned to go clear

Sincerely, L. Cohen

**Sing Another Song, Boys**

* * *

(Let's sing another song, boys, this one has grown old and bitter.)

Ah his fingernails, I see they're broken

His ships they're all on fire.

The moneylender's lovely little daughter

Ah, she's eaten, she's eaten with desire.

She spies him through the glasses

From the pawnshops of her wicked father

She hails him with a microphone

That some poor singer, just like me, had to leave her

She tempts him with a clarinet

She waves a Nazi dagger

She finds him lying in a heap

She wants to be his woman.

He says "Yes, I might go to sleep

But kindly leave, leave the future

Leave it open."

He stands where it is steep

Oh I guess he thinks that he's the very first one

His hand upon his leather belt now

Like it was the wheel of some big ocean liner.

And she will learn to touch herself so well

As all the sails burn down like paper.

And he has lit the chain

Of his famous cigarillo.

Ah, they'll never, they'll never ever reach the moon

At least not the one that we're after

It's floating broken on the open sea, look out there, my friends

And it carries no survivors.

But let's leave these lovers wondering

Why they cannot have each other

And let's sing another song, boys

This one has grown old and bitter.

**Joan Of Arc**

* * *

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc

As she came riding through the dark

No moon to keep her armor bright

No man to get her through this very smoky night.

She said "I'm tired of the war

I want the kind of work I had before

A wedding dress or something white

To wear upon my swollen appetite."

Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way

You know I've watched you riding every day

And something in me yearns to win

Such a cold and lonesome heroine.

"And who are you?" she sternly spoke

To the one beneath the smoke.

"Why, I'm fire," he replied

"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."

"Then fire, make your body cold

I'm going to give you mine to hold"

Saying this she climbed inside

To be his one, to be his only bride.

And deep into his fiery heart

He took the dust of Joan of Arc

And high above the wedding guests

He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart

He took the dust of Joan of Arc

And then she clearly understood

If he was fire, oh then she must be wood.

I saw her wince, I saw her cry

I saw the glory in her eye.

Myself I long for love and light

But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

Amsterdam, 1972. Gjisbert Hanekroot / Rex Features

**Live Songs**

* * *

APRIL 1, 1973
COLUMBIA

**Minute Prologue**

**Passing Through**

**You Know Who I Am**

**Bird On The Wire**

**Seems So Long Ago, Nancy**

**Improvisation**

**Story Of Isaac**

**Please Don't Pass Me By (A Disgrace)**

**Tonight Will Be Fine**

**Queen Victoria**

**Minute Prologue**

* * *

I've been listening

To all the dissention.

I've been listening

To all the pain.

And I feel that no matter

What I do for you

It's going to come back again.

But I think that I can heal it

But I think that I can heal it

I'm a fool, but I think I can heal it

With this song.

**Passing Through**

* * *

I saw Jesus on the cross on a hill called Calvary

"Do you hate mankind for what they done to you?"

He said "Talk of love not hate, things to do – it's getting late.

I've so little time and I'm only passing through."

Passing through, passing through

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue

Glad that I ran into you

Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

I saw Adam leave the Garden with an apple in his hand

I said "Now you're out, what are you going to do?"

"Plant some crops and pray for rain, maybe raise a little cane.

I'm an orphan now, and I'm only passing through."

Passing through, passing through

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue

Glad that I ran into you

Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

I was with Washington at Valley Forge, shivering in the snow.

I said "How come the men here suffer like they do?"

"Men will suffer, men will fight, even die for what is right

Even though they know they're only passing through."

Passing through, passing through

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue

Glad that I ran into you

Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

I was with Franklin Roosevelt's side on the night before he died.

He said "One world must come out of World War Two" (ah, the fool)

"Yankee, Russian, white or tan," he said, "A man is still a man.

We're all on one road, and we're only passing through."

Passing through, passing through

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue

Glad that I ran into you

Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

(Let's do it one more time)

Passing through, passing through

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue

Glad that I ran into you

Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

**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 connect 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 burning

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 it's 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...

Ah, please don't pass me by

Well I've got to go now friends

But, please don't pass me by

For I am blind, yeah but you can see

Oh, I've been blinded,

I've been blinded totally

Oh now, please don't pass me by.

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 honor, take my courage, take my time, take my 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 someone 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. Because 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.

**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?

Queen Victoria

I'm not much nourished by modern love

Will you come into my life

With your sorrow and your black carriages

And your perfect

Memories.

Queen Victoria

The Twentieth Century belongs to you and me.

Let us be two severe giants not less lonely for our partnership

Who discolored test tubes in the halls of Science

Who turned up unwelcome at every World's Fair

Heavy with proverb and correction

Confusing the star-dazed tourists

With our incomparable sense of loss.

Barry Plummer

Hamburg, 1970. Gunter Zint / Getty

**New Skin For The Old Ceremony**

* * *

AUGUST 11, 1974
COLUMBIA

**Is This What You Wanted**

**Chelsea Hotel #2**

**Lover Lover Lover**

**Field Commander Cohen**

**Why Don't You Try**

**There Is A War**

**A Singer Must Die**

**I Tried To Leave You**

**Who By Fire**

**Take This Longing**

**Leaving Green Sleeves**

**Is This What You Wanted**

* * *

You were the promise at dawn

I was the morning after.

You were Jesus Christ my Lord

I was the money lender.

You were the sensitive woman

I was the very reverend Freud.

You were the manual orgasm

I was the dirty little boy.

And is this what you wanted

To live in a house that is haunted

By the ghost of you and me?

Is this what you wanted...

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 where the whore and the beast of Babylon

I was Rin Tin Tin.

And is this what you wanted...

And is this what you wanted...

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.

And is this what you wanted...

And is this what you wanted...

I mean is this what you wanted...

That's right, is this what you wanted...

**Chelsea Hotel #2**

* * *

I remember you

Well in the Chelsea Hotel

You were talking so brave and so sweet

Giving me head on the unmade bed

While the limousines wait in the street.

Those were the reasons and that was New York

We were running for the money and the flesh.

And that was called love for the workers in song

Probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe

You just turned your back on the crowd

You got away, I never once heard you say

I need you, I don't need you

I need you, I don't need you

And all of that jiving around.

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."

And then you got away, didn't you babe

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 even think of you that often.

**Lover Lover Lover**

* * *

I asked my father

I said "Father change my name."

The one I'm using now it's covered up

With fear and filth and cowardice and shame.

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

He said "I locked you in this body

I meant it as a kind of trial.

You can use it for a weapon

Or to make some woman smile."

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

"Then let me start again," I cried

"Please let me start again

I want a face that's fair this time

I want a spirit that is calm."

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

"I never never turned aside," he said

"I never walked away.

It was you who built the temple

It was you who covered up my face."

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

And may the spirit of this song

May it rise up pure and free.

May it be a shield for you

A shield against the enemy.

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me

Yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me.

**Field Commander Cohen**

* * *

Field Commander Cohen, he was our most important spy.

Wounded in the line of duty

Parachuting acid into diplomatic cocktail parties

Urging Fidel Castro to abandon fields and castles.

Leave it all and like a man

Come back to nothing special

Such as waiting rooms and ticket lines

Silver bullet suicides

And messianic ocean tides

And racial roller-coaster rides

And other forms of boredom advertised as poetry.

I know you need your sleep now

I know your life's been hard

But many men are falling

Where you promised to stand guard.

I never asked but I heard you cast your lot along with the poor

But then I overheard your prayer

That you be this and nothing more

Than just some grateful faithful woman's favorite singing millionaire

The patron Saint of envy and the grocer of despair

Working for the Yankee Dollar.

I know you need your sleep now

Ah, lover come and lie with me, if my lover is who you are

And be your sweetest self awhile until I ask for more, my child

Then let the other selves be rung, yeah, let them manifest and come

Till every taste is on the tongue

Till love is pierced and love is hung

And every kind of freedom done, then, oh

Oh my love, oh my love, oh my love

Oh my love, oh my love, oh my love.

**Why Don't You Try**

* * *

Why don't you try to do without him?

Why don't you try to live alone?

Do you really need his hands for your passion?

Do you really need his heart for your throne?

Do you need his labor for your baby?

Do you need his beast for the bone?

Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?

I know you're going to make, make it on your own.

Why don't you try to forget him

Just open up your dainty little hand?

You know this life is filled with many sweet companions

Many satisfying one-night stands.

Do you want to be the ditch around a tower?

Do you want to be the moonlight in his cave?

Do you want to give your blessing to his power

As he goes whistling past his daddy, past his daddy's grave.

I'd like to take you, take you to the ceremony

Well, that is if I remember the way.

You see Jack and Jill, they're going to join their misery

I'm afraid it's time for everyone to pray.

You can see they've finally taken cover

They're willing, yeah they're willing to obey.

Their vows are difficult, they're for each other

So let nobody put a loophole, a loophole in their way.

**There Is A War**

* * *

There is a war between the rich and poor

A war between the man and the woman

There is a war between the ones who say there is a war

And the ones who say there isn't.

Why don't you come on back to the war, that's right, get in it

Why don't you come on back to the war, it's just beginning.

Well I live here with a woman and a child

The situation makes me kind of nervous

Yes, I rise up from her arms, she says "I guess you call this love"

I call it service.

Why don't you come on back to the war, don't be a tourist

Why don't you come on back to the war, before it hurts us

Why don't you come on back to the war, let's all get nervous.

You cannot stand what I've become

You much prefer the gentleman I was before

I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control

I didn't even know there was a war.

Why don't you come on back to the war, don't be embarrassed

Why don't you come on back to the war, you can still get married.

There is a war between the rich and poor

A war between the man and the woman

There is a war between the left and right

A war between the black and white

A war between the odd and the even.

Why don't you come on back to the war, pick up your tiny burden

Why don't you come on back to the war, let's all get even

Why don't you come on back to the war, can't you hear me speaking?

**A Singer Must Die**

* * *

Now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess

Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is Yes.

Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine

I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline.

And all the ladies go moist and the judge has no choice

A singer must die for the lie in his voice.

And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty

You keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty

Your vision is right, my vision is wrong

I'm sorry for smudging the air with my song.

Oh the night it is thick, my defences are hid

In the clothes of a woman I would like to forgive

In the rings of her silk, in the hinge of her thighs

Where I have to go begging in beauty's disguise.

Oh goodnight, goodnight my night after night

My night after night after night after night after night after night.

I am so afraid that I listen to you

Your sun-glassed protectors they do that to you

It's their ways to detain, their ways to disgrace

Their knee in your balls and their fist in your face

Yes and long live the state by whoever it's made

Sir, I didn't see nothing, I was just getting home late.

Getty

**I Tried To Leave You**

* * *

I tried to leave you, I don't deny

I closed the book on us, at least a hundred times

I'd wake up every morning by your side.

The years go by, you lose your pride

The baby's crying, so you do not go outside

And all your work it's right before your eyes.

Goodnight, my darling, I hope you're satisfied

The bed is kind of narrow but my arms are open wide

And here's a man still working for your smile.

**Who By Fire**

* * *

And who by fire, who by water

Who in the sunshine, who in the night time

Who by high ordeal, who by common trial

Who in your merry, merry month of May

Who by very slow decay

And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate

Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt

And who by avalanche, who by powder

Who for his greed, who for his hunger

And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident

Who in solitude, who in this mirror

Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand

Who in mortal chains, who in power

And who shall I say is calling?

**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.

**Leaving Green Sleeves**

* * *

Alas, my love you did me wrong

To cast me out discourteously

For I have loved you so long

Delighting in your very company.

Now if you intend to show me disdain

Don't you know it all the more enraptures me

For even so I still remain your lover in captivity.

Green sleeves, you're all alone

The leaves have fallen, the men have gone.

Green sleeves, there's no one home

Not even the Lady Green Sleeves.

I sang my songs, I told my lies

To lie between your matchless thighs

And ain't it fine, ain't it wild

To finally end our exercise.

Then I saw you naked in the early dawn

Oh, I hoped you would be someone new.

I reached for you but you were gone

So lady I'm going too.

Green sleeves, you're all alone

The leaves have fallen, the men have gone.

Green sleeves, there's no one home

Not even the Lady Green Sleeves.

Green sleeves, you're all alone

The leaves have fallen, the men have all gone home.

Green sleeves, it's so easily done

Leaving the Lady Green Sleeves.

Claude van Heye / Photoshot

**Do I Have To Dance All Night**

* * *

1976
CBS

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?

But do I have to dance all night?

Ooh tell me, Bird of Paradise

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?

But do I have to dance all night?

Ooh tell me, Bird of Paradise

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?

But do I have to dance all night?

Ooh tell me, Bird of Paradise

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.

1976. Michael Putland / Getty

**Death Of A Ladies' Man**

* * *

NOVEMBER 13, 1977
WARNER BROS

**True Love Leaves No Traces**

**Iodine**

**Paper Thin Hotel**

**Memories**

**I Left A Woman Waiting**

**Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On**

**Fingerprints**

**Death Of A Ladies' Man**

**True Love Leaves No Traces**

* * *

As the mist leaves no scar

On the dark green hill

So my body leaves no scar

On you and never will

Through windows in the dark

The children come, the children go

Like arrows with no targets

Like shackles made of snow

True love leaves no traces

If you and I are one

It's lost in our embraces

Like stars against the sun

As a falling leaf may rest

A moment on the air

So your head upon my breast

So my hand upon your hair

And many nights endure

Without a moon or star

So we will endure

When one is gone and far

True love leaves no traces

If you and I are one

It's lost in our embraces

Like stars against the sun

**Iodine**

* * *

I needed you, I knew I was in danger

Of losing what I used to think was mine

You let me love you till I was a failure

You let me love you till I was a failure

Your beauty on my bruise like iodine

I asked you if a man could be forgiven

And though I failed at love, was this a crime

You said, Don't worry, don't worry, darling

You said, Don't worry, don't you worry, darling

There are many ways a man can serve his time

You covered up that place I could not master

It wasn't dark enough to shut my eyes

So I was with you, O sweet compassion

Yes I was with you, O sweet compassion

Compassion with the sting of iodine

Your saintly kisses reeked of iodine

Your fragrance with a fume of iodine

And pity in the room like iodine

Your sister fingers burned like iodine

And all my wanton lust was iodine

My masquerade of trust was iodine

And everywhere the flare of iodine

**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

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

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

**Memories**

* * *

Frankie Lane, he was singing Jezebel

I pinned an Iron Cross to my lapel

I walked up to the tallest and the blondest girl

I said, Look, you don't know me now but very soon you will

So won't you let me see

I said, Won't you let me see

I said, Won't you let me see

Your naked body?

Just dance me to the dark side of the gym

Chances are I'll let you do most anything

I know you're hungry, I can hear it in your voice

And there are many parts of me to touch, you have your choice

Ah but no you cannot see

She said, No you cannot see

She said, No you cannot see

My naked body.

So we're dancing close, the band is playing Stardust

Balloons and paper streamers floating down on us

She says, You've got a minute left to fall in love

In solemn moments such as this I have put my trust

And all my faith to see

I said all my faith to see

I said all my faith to see

Her naked body.

**I Left A Woman Waiting**

* * *

I left a woman waiting

I met her sometime later

She said, I see your eyes are dead

What happened to you, lover?

What happened to you, my lover?

What happened to you, lover?

What happened to you?

And since she spoke the truth to me

I tried to answer truthfully

Whatever happened to my eyes

Happened to your beauty

Happened to your beauty

What happened to your beauty

Happened to me.

We took ourselves to someone's bed

And there we fell together

Quick as dogs and truly dead were we

And free as running water

Free as running water

Free as running water

Free as you and me

The way it's got to be

The way it's got to be, lover.

**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 your 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

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

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

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

So I work in that same beauty salon

I'm chained to the old masquerade

The lipstick, the shadow, the silicone

I follow my father's trade

I follow my father's trade

Yes I follow my father's trade

Yes I follow my father's trade

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

**Fingerprints**

* * *

I touched you once too often

Now I don't know who I am

My fingerprints were missing

When I wiped away the jam

Yes, I called my fingerprints all night

But they don't seem to care

The last time that I saw them

They were leafing through your hair

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

Yeah, I thought I'd leave this morning

So I emptied out your drawer

A hundred thousand fingerprints

They floated to the floor

You know you hardly stopped to pick them up

You don't care what you lose

Ah you don't even seem to know

Whose fingerprints are whose

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

And now you want to marry me

You want to take me down the aisle

You want to throw confetti fingerprints

You know that's not my style

O sure I'd like to marry you

But I can't face the dawn

With any girl who knew me

When my fingerprints were on

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

Fingerprints, oh fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

**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.

Gai Terrell / Getty

**Recent Songs**

* * *

SEPTEMBER 27, 1979
COLUMBIA

**The Guests**

**Humbled In Love**

**The Window**

**Came So Far For Beauty**

**The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien errant)**

**The Traitor**

**Our Lady Of Solitude**

**The Gypsy's Wife**

**The Smokey Life**

**Ballad Of The Absent Mare**

**The Guests**

* * *

One by one, the guests arrive

The guests are coming through

The open-hearted many

The broken-hearted few

And no one knows where the night is going

And no one knows why the wine is flowing

Oh love I need you

I need you

I need you

I need you

Oh... I need you now

And those who dance, begin to dance

Those who weep begin

And "Welcome, welcome" cries a voice

"Let all my guests come in."

And no one knows where the night is going

And no one knows why the wine is flowing

Oh love I need you

I need you

I need you

I need you

Oh... I need you now

And all go stumbling through that house

In lonely secrecy

Saying "Do reveal yourself"

Or "Why has thou forsaken me?"

And no one knows where the night is going

And no one knows why the wine is flowing

Oh love I need you

I need you

I need you

I need you

Oh... I need you now

All at once the torches flare

The inner door flies open

One by one they enter there

In every style of passion

And no one knows where the night is going...

And here they take their sweet repast

While house and grounds dissolve

And one by one the guests are cast

Beyond the garden wall

And no one knows where the night is going

And no one knows why the wine is flowing

Oh love I need you

I need you

I need you

I need you

Oh... I need you now

Those who dance, begin to dance

Those who weep begin

Those who earnestly are lost

Are lost and lost again

And no one knows where the night is going

And no one knows why the wine is flowing

Oh love I need you

I need you

I need you

I need you

Oh... I need you now

One by one the guests arrive

The guests are coming through

The broken-hearted many

The open-hearted few

And no one knows where the night is going

And no one knows why the wine is flowing

Oh love I need you

I need you

I need you

I need you

Oh... I need you now

**Humbled In Love**

* * *

Do you remember all of those pledges

That we pledged in the passionate night

Ah they're soiled now, they're torn at the edges

Like moths on a still yellow light

No penance serves to renew them

No massive transfusions of trust

Why not even revenge can undo them

So twisted these vows and so crushed

And you say you've been humbled in love

Cut down in your love

Forced to kneel in the mud next to me

Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one

Who kneels there as deeply as thee

Children have taken these pledges

They have ferried them out of the past

Oh beyond all the graves and the hedges

Where love must go hiding at last

And here where there is no description

Oh here in the moment at hand

No sinner need rise up forgiven

No victim need limp to the stand

And you say you've been humbled in love

Cut down in your love

Forced to kneel in the mud next to me

Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one

Who kneels there as deeply as thee

And look dear heart, look at the virgin

Look how she welcomes him into her gown

Yes, and mark how the stranger's cold armor

Dissolves like a star falling down

Why trade this vision for desire

When you may have them both

You will never see a man this naked

I will never hold a woman this close

And you say you've been humbled in love

Cut down in your love

Forced to kneel in the mud next to me

Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one

Who kneels there as deeply as thee

**The Window**

* * *

Why do you stand by the window

Abandoned to beauty and pride

The thorn of the night in your bosom

The spear of the age in your side

Lost in the rages of fragrance

Lost in the rags of remorse

Lost in the waves of a sickness

That loosens the high silver nerves

Oh chosen love, oh frozen love

Oh tangle of matter and ghost

Oh darling of angels, demons and saints

And the whole broken-hearted host

Gentle this soul

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 a rose on its ladder of thorns

Oh chosen love, oh frozen love

Oh tangle of matter and ghost

Oh darling of angels, demons and saints

And the whole broken-hearted host

Gentle this soul

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 thee continuous stutter

Of the word being made into flesh

Oh chosen love, oh frozen love

Oh tangle of matter and ghost

Oh darling of angels, demons and saints

And the whole broken-hearted host

Gentle this soul

Gentle this soul

**Came So Far For Beauty**

* * *

I came so far for beauty

I left so much behind

My patience and my family

My masterpiece unsigned

I thought I'd be rewarded

For such a lonely choice

And surely she would answer

To such a very hopeless voice

I practiced all my sainthood

I gave to one and all

But the rumors of my virtue

They moved her not at all

I changed my style to silver

I changed my clothes to black

And where I would surrender

Now I would attack

I stormed the old casino

For the money and the flesh

And I myself decided

What was rotten and what was fresh

And men to do my bidding

And broken bones to teach

The value of my pardon

The shadow of my reach

But no, I could not touch her

With such a heavy hand

Her star beyond my order

Her nakedness unmanned

I came so far for beauty

I left so much behind

My patience and my family

My masterpiece unsigned

* * *

Co-written with John Lissauer

**The Traitor**

* * *

Now the Swan it floated on the English river

Ah the Rose of High Romance it opened wide

A sun tanned woman yearned me through the summer

And the judges watched us from the other side.

I told my mother, Mother I must leave you

Preserve my room but do not shed a tear

Should rumor of a shabby ending reach you

It was half my fault and half the atmosphere.

But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever

And the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame

She said at last I was her finest lover

And if she withered I would be to blame.

The judges said you missed it by a fraction

Rise up and brace your troops for the attack

Ah, the dreamers ride against the men of action

Oh, see the men of action falling back

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment

I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still

My falsity had stung me like a hornet

The poison sank and it paralysed my will

I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers

That they had been deserted from above

So on battlefields from here to Barcelona

I'm listed with the enemies of love.

And long ago she said, I must be leaving,

Ah but keep my body here to lie upon

You can move it up and down and when I'm sleeping

Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan.

So daily I renew my idle duty

I touch her here and there – I know my place

I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty

and people call me traitor to my face.

Ian Cook / Getty

**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

**The Gypsy's Wife**

* * *

And where, where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight

I've heard all the wild reports, they can't be right

But whose head is this she's dancing with on the threshing floor

Whose darkness deepens in her arms a little more

And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

Where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafe

A ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligee

She says "My body is the light, my body is the way"

I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride's bouquet

And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

Where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

Too early for the rainbow, too early for the dove

These are the final days, this is the darkness, this is the flood

And there is no man or woman who can't be touched

But you who come between them will be judged

And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

Where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

1979. Getty

**The Smokey Life**

* * *

I've never seen your eyes so wide

I've never seen your appetite quite this occupied

Elsewhere is your feast of love

I know, where long ago we agreed to keep it light

So let's be married one more night

It's light, light enough

To let it go

It's light enough to let it go

Remember when the scenery started fading

I held you till you learned to walk on air

So don't look down the ground is gone

There's no one waiting anyway

The Smokey Life is practiced

Everywhere

So set your restless heart at ease

Take a lesson from these Autumn leaves

They waste no time waiting for the snow

Don't argue now you'll be late

There is nothing to investigate

It's light enough, light enough

To let it go

Light enough to let it go

Remember when the scenery started fading

I held you till you learned to walk on air

So don't look down the ground is gone

There's no one waiting anyway

The Smokey Life is practiced everywhere

Come on back if the moment lends

You can look up all my very closest friends

Light, light enough

To let it go

It's light enough to let it go

**Ballad Of The Absent Mare**

* * *

Say a prayer for the cowboy

His mare's run away

And he'll walk till he finds her

His darling, his stray

But the river's in flood

And the roads are awash

And the bridges break up

In the panic of loss

And there's nothing to follow

There's nowhere to go

She's gone like the summer

Gone like the snow

And the crickets are breaking

His heart with their song

As the day caves in

And the night is all wrong.

Did he dream, was it she

Who went galloping past

And bent down the fern

Broke open the grass

And printed the mud with

The iron and the gold

That he nailed to her feet

When he was the lord

And although she goes grazing

A minute away

He tracks her all night

He tracks her all day

Oh blind to her presence

Except to compare

His injury here

With her punishment there.

Then at home on a branch

In the highest tree

A songbird sings out

So suddenly

Ah, the sun is warm

And the soft winds ride

On the willow trees

By the river side.

Oh, the world is sweet

The world is wide

And she's there where

The light and the darkness divide

And the steam's coming off her

She's huge and she's shy

And she steps on the moon

When she paws at the sky.

And she comes to his hand

But she's not really tame

She longs to be lost

He longs for the same

And she'll bolt and she'll plunge

Through the first open pass

To roll and to feed

In the sweet mountain grass

Or, she'll make a break

For the high plateau

Where there's nothing above

And there's nothing below

And it's time for the burden

It's time for the whip

Will she walk through the flame

Can he shoot from the hip.

So he binds himself

To the galloping mare

And she binds herself

To the rider there

And there is no space

But there's left and right

And there is no time

But there's day and night

And he leans on her neck

And he whispers low

"Whither thou goest I will go"

And they turn as one

And they head for the plain

No need for the whip

Ah, no need for the rein.

Now the clasp of this union

Who fastens it tight?

Who snaps it asunder

The very next night

Some say the rider

Some say the mare

Or that love's like the smoke

Beyond all repair

But my darling says

"Leonard, just let it go by

That old silhouette

On the great western sky"

So I pick out a tune

And they move right along

And they're gone like the smoke

And they're gone like this song.

* * *

'The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien Errant)': words and music by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie

New York, mid-1980s. Oliver Morris / Getty

**Various Positions**

* * *

FEBRUARY 7, 1985
COLUMBIA

**Dance Me To The End Of Love**

**Coming Back To You**

**The Law**

**Night Comes On**

**Hallelujah**

**The Captain**

**Hunter's Lullaby**

**Heart With No Companion**

**If It Be Your Will**

**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

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

**Coming Back To You**

* * *

Maybe I'm still hurting

I can't turn the other cheek

But you know that I still love you

It's just that I can't speak

I looked for you in everyone

And they called me on that too

I lived alone but I was only

Coming back to you

Ah, they're shutting down the factory now

Just when all the bills are due

And the fields they're under lock and key

Tho' the rain and the sun come through

And springtime starts but then it stops

In the name of something new

And all the senses rise against this

Coming back to you

And they're handing down my sentence now

And I know what I must do

Another mile of silence while I'm

Coming back to you

There are many in your life

And many still to be

Since you are a shining light

There's many that you'll see

But I have to deal with envy

When you choose the precious few

Who've left their pride on the other side of

Coming back to you

Even in your arms I know

I'll never get it right

Even when you bend to give me

Comfort in the night

I've got to have your word on this

Or none of it is true

And all I've said was just instead of

Coming back to you

**The Law**

* * *

How many times did you call me

And I knew it was late

I left everybody

But I never went straight

I don't claim to be guilty

But I do understand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

Now my heart's like a blister

From doing what I do

If the moon has a sister

It's got to be you

I'm going to miss you forever

Tho' it's not what I planned

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

Now the deal has been dirty

Since dirty began

I'm not asking for mercy

Not from the man

You just don't ask for mercy

While you're still on the stand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

I don't claim to be guilty

Guilty's too grand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

That's all I can say, baby

That's all I can say

It wasn't for nothing

That they put me away

I fell with my angel

Down the chain of command

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand

**Night Comes On**

* * *

I went down to the place

Where I knew she lay waiting

Under the marble and the snow

I said, Mother I'm frightened

The thunder and the lightning

I'll never come through this alone

She said, I'll be with you

My shawl wrapped around you

My hand on your head when you go

And the night came on

It was very calm

I wanted the night to go on and on

But she said, Go back to the World

We were fighting in Egypt

When they signed this agreement

That nobody else had to die

There was this terrible sound

And my father went down

With a terrible wound in his side

He said, Try to go on

Take my books, take my gun

Remember, my son, how they lied

And the night comes on

It's very calm

I'd like to pretend that my father was wrong

But you don't want to lie, not to the young

We were locked in this kitchen

I took to religion

And I wondered how long she would stay

I needed so much

To have nothing to touch

I've always been greedy that way

But my son and my daughter

Climbed out of the water

Crying, Papa, you promised to play

And they lead me away

To the great surprise

It's Papa, don't peek, Papa, cover your eyes

And they hide, they hide in the World

Now I look for her always

I'm lost in this calling

I'm tied to the threads of some prayer

Saying, When will she summon me

When will she come to me

What must I do to prepare

When she bends to my longing

Like a willow, like a fountain

She stands in the luminous air

And the night comes on

And it's very calm

I lie in her arms and say, When I'm gone

I'll be yours, yours for a song

Now the crickets are singing

The vesper bells ringing

The cat's curled asleep in his chair

I'll go down to Bill's Bar

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

**Hallelujah**

* * *

Now I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you

To a kitchen chair

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain

I don't even know the name

But if I did, well really, what's it to you?

There's a blaze of light

In every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

And even though

It all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

* * *

1984 version from _Various Positions_ (1984)

**Hallelujah**

* * *

Baby, I've been here before

I know this room, I've walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you

Yeah I've seen your flag

On the marble arch

But listen, love is not some kind of victory march

No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know

What's really going on below

Ah but now you never show it to me, do you?

Yeah but I remember

Yeah when I moved in you

And the holy dove, she was moving too

Yes every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above

As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love

Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you

Yeah but it's not a complaint

That you hear tonight

It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light

No, it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come all this way to fool you

Yeah even though

It all went wrong

I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

* * *

1988 version included on _Live In Concert_ (1994)

**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.

**Hunter's Lullaby**

* * *

Your father's gone a-hunting

He's deep in the forest so wild

And he cannot take his wife with him

He cannot take his child

Your father's gone a-hunting

In the quicksand and the clay

And a woman cannot follow him

Although she knows the way

Your father's gone a-hunting

Through the silver and the glass

Where only greed can enter

But spirit, spirit cannot pass

Your father's gone a-hunting

For the beast he'll never bind

And he leaves a baby sleeping

And his blessings all behind

Your father's gone a-hunting

And he's lost his lucky charm

And he's lost the guardian heart

That keeps the hunter from the harm

Your father's gone a-hunting

He asked me to say goodbye

And he warned me not to stop him

I wouldn't, I wouldn't even try

**Heart With No Companion**

* * *

I greet you from the other side

Of sorrow and despair

With a love so vast and shattered

It will reach you everywhere

And I sing this for the captain

Whose ship has not been built

For the mother in confusion

Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion

For the soul without a king

For the prima ballerina

Who cannot dance to anything

Through the days of shame that are coming

Through the nights of wild distress

Though your promise count for nothing

You must keep it nonetheless

You must keep it for the captain

Whose ship has not been built

For the mother in confusion

Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion

For the soul without a king

For the prima ballerina

Who cannot dance to anything

I greet you from the other side

Of sorrow and despair

With a love so vast and shattered

It will reach you everywhere

**If It Be Your Will**

* * *

If it be your will

That I speak no more

And my voice be still

As it was before

I will speak no more

I shall abide until

I am spoken for

If it be your will

If it be your will

That a voice be true

From this broken hill

I will sing to you

From this broken hill

All your praises they shall ring

If it be your will

To let me sing

From this broken hill

All your praises they shall ring

If it be your will

To let me sing

If it be your will

If there is a choice

Let the rivers fill

Let the hills rejoice

Let your mercy spill

On all these burning hearts in hell

If it be your will

To make us well

And draw us near

And bind us tight

All your children here

In their rags of light

In our rags of light

All dressed to kill

And end this night

If it be your will

If it be your will

Jean-Claude Deutsch / Getty

**I'm Your Man**

* * *

FEBRUARY 2, 1988
COLUMBIA

**First We Take Manhattan**

**Ain't No Cure For Love**

**Everybody Knows**

**I'm Your Man**

**Take This Waltz**

**Jazz Police**

**I Can't Forget**

**Tower Of Song**

**First We Take Manhattan**

* * *

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom

For trying to change the system from within

I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens

I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin

I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win

You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline

How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I don't like your fashion business mister

And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin

I don't like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

And I thank you for those items that you sent me

The monkey and the plywood violin

I practiced every night, now I'm ready

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I am guided

Ah remember me, I used to live for music

Remember me, I brought your groceries in

Well it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

**Ain't No Cure For Love**

* * *

I loved you for a long, long time

I know this love is real

It don't matter how it all went wrong

That don't change the way I feel

And I can't believe that time's

Gonna heal this wound I'm speaking of

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure for love

I'm aching for you baby

I can't pretend I'm not

I need to see you naked

In your body and your thought

I've got you like a habit

And I'll never get enough

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure for love

There ain't no cure for love

There ain't no cure for love

All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky

The holy books are open wide

The doctors working day and night

But they'll never ever find that cure for love

There ain't no drink no drug

(Ah tell them, angels)

There's nothing pure enough to be a cure for love

I see you in the subway and I see you on the bus

I see you lying down with me, I see you waking up

I see your hand, I see your hair

Your bracelets and your brush

And I call to you, I call to you

But I don't call soft enough

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure for love

I walked into this empty church I had no place else to go

When the sweetest voice I ever heard, whispered to my soul

I don't need to be forgiven for loving you so much

It's written in the scriptures

It's written there in blood

I even heard the angels declare it from above

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure

There ain't no cure for love

There ain't no cure for love

There ain't no cure for love

All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky

The holy books are open wide

The doctors working day and night

But they'll never ever find that cure

That cure for love

**Everybody Knows**

* * *

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows that the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking

Everybody knows that the captain lied

Everybody got this broken feeling

Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long stem rose

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby

Everybody knows that you really do

Everybody knows that you've been faithful

Ah, give or take a night or two

Everybody knows you've been discreet

But there were so many people you just had to meet

Without your clothes

And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never

Everybody knows that it's me or you

And everybody knows that you live forever

Ah, when you've done a line or two

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming

Everybody knows that it's moving fast

Everybody knows that the naked man and woman

Are just a shining artifact of the past

Everybody knows the scene is dead

But there's gonna be a meter on your bed

That will disclose

What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble

Everybody knows what you've been through

From the bloody cross on top of Calvary

To the beach of Malibu

Everybody knows it's coming apart

Take one last look at this Sacred Heart

Before it blows

And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows

* * *

Co-written with Sharon Robinson

**I'm Your Man**

* * *

If you want a lover

I'll do anything you ask me to

And if you want another kind of love

I'll wear a mask for you

If you want a partner

Take my hand

Or if you want to strike me down in anger

Here I stand

I'm your man

If you want a boxer

I will step into the ring for you

And if you want a doctor

I'll examine every inch of you

If you want a driver

Climb inside

Or if you want to take me for a ride

You know you can

I'm your man

Ah, the moon's too bright

The chain's too tight

The beast won't go to sleep

I've been running through these promises to you

That I made and I could not keep

Ah, but a man never got a woman back

Not by begging on his knees

Or I'd crawl to you baby

And I'd fall at your feet

And I'd howl at your beauty

Like a dog in heat

And I'd claw at your heart

And I'd tear at your sheet

I'd say please, please

I'm your man

And if you've got to sleep

A moment on the road

I will steer for you

And if you want to work the street alone

I'll disappear for you

If you want a father for your child

Or only want to walk with me a while

Across the sand

I'm your man

If you want a lover

I'll do anything you ask me to

And if you want another kind of love

I'll wear a mask for you

**Take This Waltz**

* * *

Now in Vienna there're 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 to 'Take This Waltz' are Cohen's translation of Federico Garcia Lorca's poem 'Pequeño Vals Vienès'

**Jazz Police**

* * *

Can you tell me why the bells are ringing?

Nothing's happened in a million years

I've been sitting here since Wednesday morning

Wednesday morning can't believe my ears

Jazz police are looking through my folders

Jazz police are talking to my niece

Jazz police have got their final orders

Jazzer, drop your axe, it's Jazz police!

Jesus taken serious by the many

Jesus taken joyous by a few

Jazz police are paid by J.P. Getty

Jazzers paid by J. Paul Getty II

Jazz police I hear you calling

Jazz police I feel so blue

Jazz police I think I'm falling,

I'm falling for you

Wild as any freedom loving racist

I applaud the actions of the chief

Tell me now oh beautiful and spacious

Am I in trouble with the Jazz police?

Jazz police are looking through my folders...

They will never understand our culture

They'll never understand the Jazz police

Jazz police are working for my mother

Blood is thicker margarine than grease

Let me be somebody I admire

Let me be that muscle down the street

Stick another turtle on the fire

Guys like me are mad for turtle meat

Jazz police I hear you calling

Jazz police I feel so blue

Jazz police I think I'm falling,

I'm falling for you

* * *

Co-written with Jeff Fisher

**I Can't Forget**

* * *

I stumbled out of bed

I got ready for the struggle

I smoked a cigarette

And I tightened up my gut

I said this can't be me

Must be my double

And I can't forget, I can't forget

I can't forget but I don't remember what

I'm burning up the road

I'm heading down to Phoenix

I got this old address

Of someone that I knew

It was high and fine and free

Ah, you should have seen us

And I can't forget, I can't forget

I can't forget but I don't remember who

I'll be there today

With a big bouquet of cactus

I got this rig that runs on memories

And I promise, cross my heart

They'll never catch us

But if they do, just tell them it was me

Yeah I loved you all my life

And that's how I want to end it

The summer's almost gone

The winter's tuning up

Yeah, the summer's gone

But a lot goes on forever

And I can't forget, I can't forget

I can't forget but I don't remember what

**Tower Of Song**

* * *

Well my friends are gone and my hair is gray

I ache in the places where I used to play

And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on

I'm just paying my rent every day

Oh in the Tower of Song

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

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

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

Ah, they don't let a woman kill you

Not in the Tower of Song

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 judgement coming, but I may be wrong

You see, you hear these funny voices

In the Tower of Song

I see you standing on the other side

I don't know how the river got so wide

I loved you baby, way back when

And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed

But I feel so close to everything that we lost

We'll never have to lose it again

Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back

They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track

But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone

I'll be speaking to you sweetly

From a window in the Tower of Song

Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is gray

I ache in the places where I used to play

And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on

I'm just paying my rent every day

Oh in the Tower of Song

Circa 1990. Terry O'Neill

**The Future**

* * *

NOVEMBER 24, 1992
COLUMBIA

**The Future**

**Waiting For The Miracle**

**Be For Real**

**Closing Time**

**Anthem**

**Democracy**

**Light As The Breeze**

**Always**

**Tacoma Trailer**

**The Future**

* * *

Give me back my broken night

My mirrored room, my secret life

It's lonely here,

There's no one left to torture

Give me absolute control

Over every living soul

And lie beside me, baby,

That's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex

Take the only tree that's left

And stuff it up the hole

In your culture

Give me back the Berlin wall

Give me Stalin and St Paul

I've seen the future, brother:

It is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

Won't be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world

Has crossed the threshold

And it has overturned

The order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind

You never will, you never did

I'm the little Jew

Who wrote the Bible

I've seen the nations rise and fall

I've heard their stories, heard them all

But love's the only engine of survival

Your servant here, he has been told

To say it clear, to say it cold:

It's over, it ain't going

Any further

And now the wheels of heaven stop

You feel the devil's riding crop

Get ready for the future:

It is murder

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions...

There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code

Your private life will suddenly explode

There'll be phantoms

There'll be fires on the road

And the white man dancing

You'll see a woman hanging upside down

Her features covered by her fallen gown

And all the lousy little poets coming round

Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson

And the white man dancin'

Give me back the Berlin wall

Give me Stalin and St Paul

Give me Christ

Or give me Hiroshima

Destroy another fetus now

We don't like children anyhow

I've seen the future, baby:

It is murder

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions...

* * *

Co-written with Sharon Robinson

**Waiting For The Miracle**

* * *

Baby, I've been waiting

I've been waiting night and day.

I didn't see the time

I waited half my life away.

There were lots of invitations

And I know you sent me some,

But I was waiting

For the miracle, for the miracle to come.

I know you really loved me.

But, you see, my hands were tied.

I know it must have hurt you

It must have hurt your pride

To have to stand beneath my window

With your bugle and your drum,

And me I'm up there waiting

For the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Ah I don't believe you'd like it,

You wouldn't like it here.

There ain't no entertainment

And the judgements are severe.

The Maestro says it's Mozart

But it sounds like bubble gum

When you're waiting

For the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Waiting for the miracle

There's nothing left to do.

I haven't been this happy

since the end of World War II.

Nothing left to do

When you know that you've been taken.

Nothing left to do

When you're begging for a crumb.

Nothing left to do

When you've got to go on waiting

Waiting for the miracle to come.

I dreamed about you, baby.

It was just the other night.

Most of you was naked

Ah, but some of you was light.

The sands of time were falling

From your fingers and your thumb

And you were waiting

For the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Ah baby, let's get married

We've been alone too long.

Let's be alone together.

Let's see if we're that strong.

Yeah let's do something crazy

Something absolutely wrong

While we're waiting

for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Nothing left to do

When you know that you've been taken.

Nothing left to do

When you're begging for a crumb.

Nothing left to do

When you've got to go on waiting

Waiting for the miracle to come.

When you've fallen on the highway

And you're lying in the rain

And they ask you how you're doing

Of course you'll say you can't complain.

If you're squeezed for information

That's when you've got to play it dumb

You just say you're out there waiting

For the miracle, for the miracle to come.

* * *

Co-written with Sharon Robinson

**Closing Time**

* * *

Ah we're drinking and we're dancing

And the band is really happening

And the Johnny Walker wisdom running high

And my very sweet companion

She's the Angel of Compassion

She's rubbing half the world against her thigh

And every drinker every dancer

Lifts a happy face to thank her

The fiddler fiddles something so sublime

All the women tear their blouses off

And the men they dance on the polka-dots

And it's partner found, it's partner lost

And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:

It's CLOSING TIME

Yeah the women tear their blouses off

And the men they dance on the polka-dots

And it's partner found, it's partner lost

And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:

It's CLOSING TIME

Ah we're lonely, we're romantic

And the cider's laced with acid

And the Holy Spirit's crying "Where's the beef?"

And the moon is swimming naked

And the summer night is fragrant

With a mighty expectation of relief

So we struggle and we stagger

Down the snakes and up the ladder

To the tower where the blessed hours chime

And I swear it happened just like this:

A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss

The Gates of Love they budged an inch

I can't say much has happened since

But CLOSING TIME

I swear it happened just like this

A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss

The Gates of Love they budged an inch

I can't say much has happened since

CLOSING TIME

I loved you for your beauty

But that doesn't make a fool of me:

You were in it for your beauty too

And I loved you for your body

There's a voice that sounds like God to me

Declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you

And I loved you when our love was blessed

And I love you now there's nothing left

But sorrow and a sense of overtime

And I missed you since the place got wrecked

And I just don't care what happens next

Looks like freedom but it feels like death

It's something in between, I guess

It's CLOSING TIME

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked

By the winds of change and the weeds of sex

Looks like freedom but it feels like death

It's something in between, I guess

It's CLOSING TIME

Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing

But there's nothing really happening

And the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night

And my very close companion

Gets me fumbling gets me laughing

She's a hundred but she's wearing something tight

And I lift my glass to the Awful Truth

Which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth

Except to say it isn't worth a dime

And the whole damn place goes crazy twice

And it's once for the devil and once for Christ

But the Boss don't like these dizzy heights

We're busted in the blinding lights

Busted in the blinding lights

Of CLOSING TIME

The whole damn place goes crazy twice

And it's once for the devil and once for Christ

But the Boss don't like these dizzy heights

We're busted in the blinding lights

Busted in the blinding lights

Of CLOSING TIME

Oh the women tear their blouses off

And the men they dance on the polka-dots

It's CLOSING TIME

And it's partner found, it's partner lost

And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops

It's CLOSING TIME

I swear it happened just like this:

A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss

It's CLOSING TIME

The Gates of Love they budged an inch

I can't say much has happened since

But CLOSING TIME

I loved you when our love was blessed

I love you now there's nothing left

But CLOSING TIME

I miss you since the place got wrecked

By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.

**Anthem**

* * *

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what

Has passed away

Or what is yet to be.

Ah the wars they will

Be fought again

The holy dove

She will be caught again

Bought and sold

And bought again

The dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs

The signs were sent

The birth betrayed

The marriage spent

Yeah the widowhood

Of every government

Signs for all to see.

I can't run no more

With that lawless crowd

While the killers in high places

Say their prayers out loud.

But they've summoned, they've

summoned up

A thundercloud

And they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

You can add up the parts

But you won't have the sum

You can strike up the march

There is no drum

Every heart, every heart

To love will come

But like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

**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

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.

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.

Ebet Roberts / Getty

**Light As The Breeze**

* * *

She stands before you naked.

You can see it, you can taste it

And she comes to you light as the breeze.

Now you can drink it or you can nurse it,

It don't matter how you worship

As long as you're

Down on your knees.

So I knelt there at the delta,

At the alpha and the omega,

At the cradle of the river and the seas.

And like a blessing come from heaven

For something like a second

I was healed and my heart

Was at ease.

O baby I waited

So long for your kiss

For something to happen,

Oh something like this.

And you're weak and you're harmless

And you're sleeping in your harness

And the wind going wild

In the trees

And it ain't exactly prison

But you'll never be forgiven

For whatever you've done

With the keys.

O baby I waited

So long for your kiss

For something to happen,

Oh something like this.

It's dark now and it's snowing

O my love I must be going

The river has started to freeze.

And I'm sick of pretending

I'm broken from bending

I've lived too long on my knees.

Then she dances so graceful

And your heart's hard and hateful

And she's naked

But that's just a tease.

And you turn in disgust

From your hatred and from your love

And she comes to you

Light as the breeze.

O baby I waited

So long for your kiss

For something to happen,

Oh something like this.

There's blood on every bracelet

You can see it, you can taste it

And it's Please baby

Please baby please.

And she says, Drink deeply, pilgrim

But don't forget there's still a woman

Beneath this

Resplendent chemise.

So I knelt there at the delta,

At the alpha and the omega,

I knelt there like one who believes.

And the blessings come from heaven

And for something like a second

I'm cured and my heart

Is at ease.

* * *

'Be For Real': words and music by Frederick Knight 'Always': words and music by Irving Berlin

1996. Norman Lomax / Rex Features

**More Best Of Leonard Cohen**

* * *

OCTOBER 7, 1997
COLUMBIA

**Never Any Good**

**The Great Event**

**Never Any Good**

* * *

I was never any good at loving you

I was never any good at coming

Through for you.

You're going to feel much better

When you cut me loose forever

I was never any good

Never any good

I was never any good at loving you

I was dying when we met

I bet my life on you

But you called me and I folded

Like you knew I'd do.

You called my ace, my king, my bluff

Okay, you win, enough's enough

I was never any good

Never any good

I was never any good at loving you

I was pretty good at taking out the garbage.

Pretty good at holding up the wall

Dealing with the fire and the earthquake

But that don't count

That don't count

That don't count for nothing much at all.

I was never any good at loving you.

I was just a tourist in your bed looking

At the view

But I can't forget where my lips

Have been

Those holy hills, that deep ravine

I was never any good

Never any good

I was never any good at loving you.

I was pretty good at taking out the garbage

Pretty good at holding up the wall.

I'm sorry for my crimes against

The moonlight

I didn't think

I didn't think

I didn't think the moon would mind at all.

I was never any good at loving you

At doing what a woman really wants

A man to do.

You're going to feel much better

When you cut me loose forever

I was never any good

Never any good

I was never any good at loving you.

**The Great Event**

* * *

It's going to happen very soon. The great event which will end the horror. Which will end the sorrow. Next Tuesday, when the sun goes down, I will play the Moonlight Sonata backwards. This will reverse the effects of the world's mad plunge into suffering, for the last 200 million years. What a lovely night that would be. What a sigh of relief, as the senile robins become bright red again, and the retired nightingales pick up their dusty tails and assert the majesty of creation.

Los Angeles. Ethan Hill / Getty

**Ten New Songs**

* * *

OCTOBER 9, 2001
COLUMBIA

**In My Secret Life**

**A Thousand Kisses Deep**

**That Don't Make It Junk**

**Here It Is**

**Love Itself**

**By The Rivers Dark**

**Alexandra Leaving**

**You Have Loved Enough**

**Boogie Street**

**The Land Of Plenty**

* * *

All songs from this album co-written with Sharon Robinson

**In My Secret Life**

* * *

I saw you this morning.

You were moving so fast.

Can't seem to loosen my grip

On the past.

And I miss you so much.

There's no one in sight.

And we're still making love

In My Secret Life.

I smile when I'm angry.

I cheat and I lie.

I do what I have to do

To get by.

But I know what is wrong.

And I know what is right.

And I'd die for the truth

In My Secret Life.

Hold on, hold on, my brother.

My sister, hold on tight.

I finally got my orders.

I'll be marching through the morning,

Marching through the night,

Moving across the borders

Of My Secret Life.

Looked through the paper.

Makes you want to cry.

Nobody cares if the people Live or die.

And the dealer wants you thinking

That it's either black or white.

Thank G–d it's not that simple

In My Secret Life.

I bite my lip.

I buy what I'm told:

From the latest hit

To the wisdom of old.

But I'm always alone.

And my heart is like ice.

And it's crowded and cold

In My Secret Life.

**A Thousand Kisses Deep**

* * *

The ponies run, the girls are young,

The odds are there to beat.

You win a while, and then it's done

Your little winning streak.

And summoned now to deal

With your invincible defeat,

You live your life as if it's real,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I'm turning tricks, I'm getting fixed,

I'm back on Boogie Street.

You lose your grip, and then you slip

Into the Masterpiece.

And maybe I had miles to drive

And promises to keep:

You ditch it all to stay alive

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,

The wretched and the meek,

We gather up our hearts and go

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Confined to sex, we pressed against

The limits of the sea:

I saw there were no oceans left

For scavengers like me.

I made it to the forward deck

I blessed our remnant fleet

And then consented to be wrecked

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I'm turning tricks, I'm getting fixed,

I'm back on Boogie Street.

I guess they won't exchange the gifts

That you were meant to keep.

And quiet is the thought of you

The file on you complete

Except what we forgot to do

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,

The wretched and the meek,

We gather up our hearts and go

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

The ponies run, the girls are young,

The odds are there to beat.

You win a while, and then it's done

Your little winning streak.

And summoned now to deal

With your invincible defeat,

You live your life as if it's real,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

* * *

For Sandy

**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.

**Here It Is**

* * *

Here is your crown

And your seal and rings;

And here is your love

For all things.

Here is your cart,

And your cardboard and piss;

And here is your love

For all of this.

May everyone live,

And may everyone die.

Hello, my love,

And my love, Goodbye.

Here is your wine,

And your drunken fall;

And here is your love

Your love for it all.

Here is your sickness,

Your bed and your pan;

And here is your love

For the woman, the man.

May everyone live,

And may everyone die.

Hello, my love,

And my love, Goodbye.

And here is the night,

The night has begun;

And here is your death

In the heart of your son.

And here is the dawn,

(Until death do us part);

And here is your death

In your daughter's heart.

May everyone live,

And may everyone die.

Hello, my love,

And my love, Goodbye.

And here you are hurried,

And here you are gone;

And here is the love

That it's all built upon.

Here is your cross,

Your nails and your hill;

And here is your love

That lists where it will.

May everyone live,

And may everyone die.

Hello, my love,

And my love, Goodbye.

**Love Itself**

* * *

The light came through the window,

Straight from the sun above,

And so inside my little room

There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw

The dust you seldom see,

Out of which the Nameless makes

A Name for one like me.

I'll try to say a little more:

Love went on and on

Until it reached an open door

Then Love Itself

Love Itself was gone.

All busy in the sunlight

The flecks did float and dance,

And I was tumbled up with them

In formless circumstance.

I'll try to say a little more:

Love went on and on

Until it reached an open door

Then Love Itself

Love Itself was gone.

Then I came back from where I'd been.

My room, it looked the same

But there was nothing left between

The Nameless and the Name.

All busy in the sunlight

The flecks did float and dance,

And I was tumbled up with them

In formless circumstance.

I'll try to say a little more:

Love went on and on

Until it reached an open door

Then Love itself,

Love Itself was gone.

Love Itself was gone.

* * *

for L.W.
(American writer Leon Wieseltier)

**By The Rivers Dark**

* * *

By the rivers dark

I wandered on.

I lived my life

In Babylon.

And I did forget

My holy song:

And I had no strength

In Babylon.

By the rivers dark

Where I could not see

Who was waiting there

Who was hunting me.

And he cut my lip

And he cut my heart.

So I could not drink

From the river dark.

And he covered me

And I saw within

My lawless heart

And my wedding ring.

I did not know

And I could not see

Who was waiting there

Who was hunting me.

By the rivers dark

I panicked on.

I belonged at last

To Babylon.

Then he struck my heart

With a deadly force

And he said "This heart:

It is not yours."

And he gave the wind

My wedding ring:

And he circled us

With everything.

By the rivers dark,

In a wounded dawn,

I live my life

In Babylon.

Though I take my song

From a withered limb,

Both song and tree

They sing for him.

Be the truth unsaid

And the blessing gone

If I forget

My Babylon.

I did not know

And I could not see

Who was waiting there

Who was hunting me.

By the rivers dark

Where it all goes on

By the rivers dark

In Babylon.

**Alexandra Leaving**

* * *

Suddenly the night has grown colder.

The god of love preparing to depart.

Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder,

They slip between the sentries of the heart.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure

They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;

And radiant beyond your widest measure

They fall among the voices and the wine.

It's not a trick, your senses all deceiving,

A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;

Even though she wakes you with a kiss.

Do not say the moment was imagined;

Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen

Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.

Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.

Your firm commitments tangible again.

And you who had the honor of her evening,

And by the honor had your own restored

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving;

Alexandra leaving with her lord.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;

Even though she wakes you with a kiss.

Do not say the moment was imagined;

Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for the occasion

In full command of every plan you wrecked

Do not choose a coward's explanation

That hides behind the cause and the effect.

And you who were bewildered by a meaning

Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

**You Have Loved Enough**

* * *

I said I'd be your lover.

You laughed at what I said.

I lost my job forever.

I was counted with the dead.

I swept the marble chambers

But you sent me down below.

You kept me from believing,

Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves

It's love that seizes me.

When hatred with his package comes

You forbid delivery.

And when the hunger for your touch

Rises from the hunger,

You whisper "You have loved enough,

Now let me be the Lover."

I swept the marble chambers

But you sent me down below.

You kept me from believing

Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves

It's love that chooses me.

When hatred with his package comes

You forbid delivery.

And when the hunger for your touch

Rises from the hunger,

You whisper "You have loved enough,

Now let me be the Lover."

**Boogie Street**

* * *

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,

I never thought we'd meet.

You kiss my lips, and then it's done:

I'm back on Boogie Street.

A sip of wine, a cigarette,

And then it's time to go.

I tidied up the kitchenette;

I tuned the old banjo.

I'm wanted at the traffic-jam.

They're saving me a seat.

I'm what I am, and what I am

Is back on Boogie Street.

And O my love, I still recall

The pleasures that we knew;

The rivers and the waterfall,

Wherein I bathed with you.

Bewildered by your beauty there,

I'd kneel to dry your feet.

By such instructions you prepare

A man for Boogie Street.

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,

I never thought we'd meet.

You kiss my lips, and then it's done:

I'm back on Boogie Street.

So come, my friends, be not afraid.

We are so lightly here.

It is in love that we are made;

In love we disappear.

Though all the maps of blood and flesh

Are posted on the door,

There's no one who has told us yet

What Boogie Street is for.

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,

I never thought we'd meet.

You kiss my lips, and then it's done:

I'm back on Boogie Street.

A sip of wine, a cigarette,

And then it's time to go.

I tidied up the kitchenette;

I tuned the old banjo.

I'm wanted at the traffic-jam.

They're saving me a seat.

I'm what I am, and what I am

Is back on Boogie Street.

**The Land Of Plenty**

* * *

Don't really have the courage

To stand where I must stand.

Don't really have the temperament

To lend a helping hand.

Don't really know who sent me

To raise my voice and say:

May the lights in The Land of Plenty

Shine on the truth some day.

I don't know why I come here,

Knowing as I do

What you really think of me,

What I really think of you.

For the millions in a prison

That wealth has set apart

For the Christ who has not risen

From the caverns of the heart

For the innermost decision

That we cannot but obey

For what's left of our religion,

I lift my voice and pray:

May the lights in The Land of Plenty

Shine on the truth some day.

I know I said I'd meet you,

I'd meet you at the store

But I can't buy it, baby.

I can't buy it anymore.

And I don't really know who sent me,

To raise my voice and say:

May the lights in The Land of Plenty

Shine on the truth some day.

For the innermost decision

That we cannot but obey

For what's left of our religion

I lift my voice and pray:

May the lights in The Land of Plenty

Shine on the truth some day.

Getty

**Dear Heather**

* * *

OCTOBER 26, 2004
COLUMBIA

**Go No More A-Roving**

**Because Of**

**The Letters**

**Undertow**

**Morning Glory**

**On That Day**

**Villanelle For Our Time**

**There For You**

**Dear Heather**

**Nightingale**

**To A Teacher**

**The Faith**

**Tennessee Waltz**

**Because Of**

* * *

Because of a few songs

Wherein I spoke of their mystery,

Women have been

Exceptionally kind

To my old age.

They make a secret place

In their busy lives

And they take me there.

They become naked

In their different ways

And they say,

"Look at me, Leonard

Look at me one last time."

Then they bend over the bed

And cover me up

Like a baby that is shivering.

**The Letters**

* * *

You never liked to get

The letters that I sent.

But now you've got the gist

Of what my letters meant.

You're reading them again,

The ones you didn't burn.

You press them to your lips,

My pages of concern.

I said there'd been a flood.

I said there's nothing left.

I hoped that you would come.

I gave you my address.

Your story was so long,

The plot was so intense,

It took you years to cross

The lines of self-defence.

The wounded forms appear:

The loss, the full extent.

And simple kindness here

The solitude of strength.

You walk into my room.

You stand there at my desk.

Begin your letter to

The one who's coming next.

* * *

Co-written with Sharon Robinson

**Undertow**

* * *

I set out one night

When the tide was low

There were signs in the sky

But I did not know

I'd be caught in the grip

Of the undertow

Ditched on a beach

Where the sea hates to go

With a child in my arms

And a chill in my soul

And my heart the shape

Of a begging bowl

**Morning Glory**

* * *

No words this time? No words. No, there are times when nothing can be done. Not this time. Is it censorship? Is it censorship? No, it's evaporation. No, it's evaporation. Is this leading somewhere? Yes. We're going down the lane. Is this going somewhere? Into the garden. Into the backyard. We're walking down the driveway. Are we moving towards... We're in the backyard... Some transcendental moment? It's almost light. That's right. That's it. Are we moving towards some transcendental moment? That's right. That's it. Do you think you'll be able to pull it off? Yes. Do you think you can pull it off? Yes, it might happen. I'm all ears. I'm all ears. Oh, the morning glory!

**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

* * *

Co-written with Anjani Thomas

**There For You**

* * *

When it all went down

And the pain came through

I get it now

I was there for you

Don't ask me how

I know it's true

I get it now

I was there for you

I make my plans

Like I always do

But when I look back

I was there for you

I walk the streets

Like I used to do

And I freeze with fear

But I'm there for you

I see my life

In full review

It was never me

It was always you

You sent me here

You sent me there

Breaking things

I can't repair

Making objects

Out of thoughts

Making more

By thinking not

Eating food

And drinking wine

A body that

I thought was mine

Dressed as Arab

Dressed as Jew

O mask of iron

I was there for you

Moods of glory

Moods so foul

The world comes through

A bloody towel

And death is old

But it's always new

I freeze with fear

And I'm there for you

I see it clear

I always knew

It was never me

I was there for you

I was there for you

My darling one

And by your law

It all was done

* * *

Co-written with Sharon Robinson

**Dear Heather**

* * *

Dear Heather

Please walk by me again

With a drink in your hand

And your legs all white

From the winter

Getty

**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 with Anjani Thomas

Dedicated to Carl Anderson (1945–2004)

**To A Teacher**

* * *

Hurt once and for all into silence.

A long pain ending without a song to prove it.

Who could stand beside you so close to Eden,

When you glinted in every eye the held-high

Razor, shivering every ram and son?

And now the silent loony bin, where

The shadows live in the rafters like

Day-weary bats,

Until the turning mind, a radar signal,

Lures them to exaggerate

Mountain-size on the white stone wall

Your tiny limp.

How can I leave you in such a house?

Are there no more saints and wizards

To praise their ways with pupils,

No more evil to stun with the slap

Of a wet red tongue?

Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror

And rest because he had finally come?

Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.

I have entered under this dark roof

As fearlessly as an honored son

Enters his father's house.

* * *

Dedicated to A M Klein (1909–1972)

(Taken from Cohen's _The Spice-Box Of Earth_ )

**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?

* * *

Based on a Québécois folk song

**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.

* * *

Written by Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King

Additional verse: Leonard Cohen

* * *

'Go No More A-Roving': words by Lord Byron

'Villanelle For Our Time': words by Frank Scott

Glastonbury, 2008. Edd Westmacott / Getty

**Live In London**

* * *

MARCH 31, 2009
COLUMBIA

**Whither Thou Goest**

**Whither Thou Goest**

* * *

Whither thou goest I will go

Whither thou lodgest I will lodge

Thy people shall be,

My people.

Whither thou goest I will go

Whither thou goest I will go

Whither thou goest I will go...

* * *

Adapted by Leonard Cohen from _The Book Of Ruth_

Los Angeles. Ann Johansson / Getty

New York, 2006. Andrew Harrer / Getty

**Old Ideas**

* * *

JANUARY 31, 2012
COLUMBIA

**Going Home**

**Amen**

**Show Me The Place**

**Darkness**

**Anyhow**

**Crazy To Love You**

**Come Healing**

**Banjo**

**Lullaby**

**Different Sides**

**Going Home**

* * *

I love to speak with Leonard

He's a sportsman and a shepherd

He's a lazy bastard

Living in a suit.

But he does say what I tell him

Even though it isn't welcome

He just doesn't have the freedom

To refuse.

He will speak these words of wisdom

Like a sage, a man of vision

Though he knows he's really nothing

But the brief elaboration of a tube.

Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

Going home

To where it's better

Than before

Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore

He wants to write a love song

An anthem of forgiving

A manual for living with defeat

A cry above the suffering

A sacrifice recovering

But that isn't what I need him

To complete

I want to make him certain

That he doesn't have a burden

That he doesn't need a vision

That he only has permission

To do my instant bidding

Which is to SAY what I have told him

To repeat

Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

Going home

To where it's better

Than before

Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore

I love to speak with Leonard

He's a sportsman and a shepherd

He's a lazy bastard

Living in a suit.

**Amen**

* * *

Tell me again

When I've been to the river

And I've taken the edge off my thirst

Tell me again

We're alone and I'm – I'm listening

I'm listening so hard that it hurts

Tell me again

When I'm clean and I'm sober

Tell me again

When I've seen through the horror

Tell me again

Tell me over and over

Tell me that you want me then

Amen

Amen

Amen

... Amen

Tell me again

When the victims are singing

And Laws of Remorse are restored

Tell me again

That you know what I'm thinking

But vengeance belongs to the lord

Tell me again

When I'm clean and I'm sober

Tell me again

When I've seen through the horror

Tell me again

Tell me over and over

Tell me that you love me then

Amen

Amen

Amen

... Amen

Tell me again

When the day has been ransomed

And night has no right to begin

Try me again

When the angels are panting

And scratching the door to come in

Tell me again

When I'm clean and I'm sober

Tell me again

When I've seen through the horror

Tell me again

Tell me over and over

Tell me that you need me then

Amen

Amen

Amen

... Amen

Tell me again

When the filth of the butcher

Is washed in the blood of the lamb

Tell me again

When the rest of the culture

Has passed through the Eye of the Camp

Tell me again

When I've seen through the horror

Tell me again

Tell me over and over

Tell me that you love me then

Amen

Amen

Amen

... Amen

**Show Me The Place**

* * *

Show me the place

Where you want your slave to go

Show me the place

I've forgotten, I don't know

Show me the place

For my head is bending low

Show me the place

Where you want your slave to go

Show me the place

Help me roll away the stone

Show me the place

I can't move this thing alone

Show me the place

Where the Word became a man

Show me the place

Where the suffering began

The troubles came

I saved what I could save

A thread of light

A particle, a wave

But there were chains

So I hastened to behave

There were chains

So I loved you like a slave

Show me the place

Where you want your slave to go

Show me the place

I've forgotten, I don't know

**Darkness**

* * *

I caught the darkness

Drinking from your cup

I caught the darkness

Drinking from your cup

I said: Is this contagious?

You said: Just drink it up

I got no future

I know my days are few

The present's not that pleasant

Just a lot of things to do

I thought the past would last me

But the darkness got that too

I should have seen it coming

It was right behind your eyes

You were young and it was summer

I just had to take a dive

Winning you was easy

But darkness was the prize

I don't smoke no cigarette

I don't drink no alcohol

I ain't had much loving yet

But that's always been your call

Hey I don't miss it baby

I got no taste for anything at all

I used to love the rainbow

I used to love the view

I loved the early morning

I'd pretend that it was new

But I caught the darkness baby

And I got it worse than you

I caught the darkness

It was drinking from your cup

I caught the darkness

Drinking from your cup

I said: Is this contagious?

You said: Just drink it up

**Anyhow**

* * *

It's a shame and it's a pity

The way you treat me now

I know you can't forgive me

But forgive me anyhow

The ending got so ugly

I even heard you say

You never ever loved me

Oh but love me anyway

Dreamed about you baby

You were wearing half your dress.

I know you have to hate me

But could you hate me less?

I used up all my chances

And you'll never take me back

But there ain't no harm in asking

Could you cut me one more slack?

I'm naked and I'm filthy

And there's sweat upon my brow

And both of us are guilty

Anyhow

Have mercy on me baby

After all I did confess

Even though you have to hate me

Could you hate me less?

It's a shame and it's a pity

I know you can't forgive me

The ending got so ugly

You never ever loved me

Dreamed about you baby

I know you have to hate me

I'm naked and I'm filthy

And both of us are guilty

Anyhow

Have mercy on me baby

**Crazy To Love You**

* * *

Had to go crazy to love you

Had to go down to the pit

Had to do time in the tower

Begging my crazy to quit

Had to go crazy to love you

You, who were never the one

Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache

Her braids and her blouse all undone

Sometimes I'd head for the highway

I'm old and the mirrors don't lie

But crazy has places to hide in

Deeper than saying goodbye

Had to go crazy to love you

Had to let everything fall

Had to be people I hated

Had to be no one at all

I'm tired of choosing desire

Been saved by a sweet fatigue

The gates of commitment unwired

And nobody trying to leave

Sometimes I'd head for the highway

I'm old and the mirrors don't lie

But crazy has places to hide in

Deeper than saying goodbye

Had to go crazy to love you

You, who were never the one

Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache

Her braids and her blouse all undone

* * *

Co-written with Anjani Thomas

**Come Healing**

* * *

O gather up the brokenness

And bring it to me now,

The fragrance of those promises

You never dared to vow

The splinters that you carry

The cross you left behind:

Come healing of the body

Come healing of the mind

And let the heavens hear it

The penitential hymn:

Come healing of the spirit

Come healing of the limb

Behold the gates of mercy,

In arbitrary space,

And none of us deserving

The cruelty or the grace

O solitude of longing

Where love has been confined:

Come healing of the body

Come healing of the mind

O see the darkness yielding

That tore the light apart:

Come healing of the reason

Come healing of the heart

O troubled dust concealing

An undivided love,

The Heart beneath is teaching

To the broken Heart above

O let the heavens falter

And let the earth proclaim:

Come healing of the Altar

Come healing of the Name

O longing of the branches

To lift the little bud,

O longing of the arteries

To purify the blood

And let the heavens hear it

The penitential hymn:

Come healing of the spirit

Come healing of the limb

O let the heavens hear it

**Banjo**

* * *

There's something that I'm watching

Means a lot to me

It's a broken banjo bobbing

On the dark infested sea

Don't know how it got there

Maybe taken by the wave

Off of someone's shoulder

Or out of someone's grave

It's coming for me darling

No matter where I go

Its duty is to harm me

My duty is to know

There's something that I'm watching

Means a lot to me

It's a broken banjo bobbing

On the dark infested sea

**Lullaby**

* * *

Sleep baby sleep

The day's on the run

The wind in the trees

Is talking in tongues

If your heart is torn

I don't wonder why

If the night is long

Here's my lullaby

Well the mouse ate the crumb

Then the cat ate the crust

Now they've fallen in love

They're talking in tongues

If your heart is torn

I don't wonder why

If the night is long

Here's my lullaby

Sleep baby sleep

There's a morning to come

The wind in the trees

they're talking in tongues

If your heart is torn

I don't wonder why

If the night is long

Here's my lullaby

**Different Sides**

* * *

We find ourselves on different sides

Of a line that nobody drew.

Though it all may be one in the higher eye

Down here where we live it is two

I to my side call the meek and the mild

You to your side call the Word.

By virtue of suffering I claim to have won

You claim to have never been heard

Both of us say there are laws to obey

But frankly I don't like your tone.

You want to change the way I make love

I want to leave it alone

The pull of the moon the thrust of the sun

And thus the ocean is crossed.

The waters are blessed while a shadowy guest

Kindles a light for the lost

Both of us say there are laws to obey

But frankly I don't like your tone.

You want to change the way I make love

I want to leave it alone

Down in the valley the famine goes on

The famine up on the hill.

I say that you shouldn't you couldn't you can't

You say that you must and you will

Both of us say there are laws to obey

But frankly I don't like your tone.

You want to change the way I make love

I want to leave it alone

You want to live where the suffering is

I want to get out of town.

C'mon baby give me a kiss

Stop writing everything down

Both of us say there are laws to obey

But frankly I don't like your tone.

You want to change the way I make love

I want to leave it alone

Both of us say there are laws to obey

Paris, 2012. Joel Saget / Getty

**Popular Problems**

* * *

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
COLUMBIA

**Slow**

**Almost Like The Blues**

**Samson In New Orleans**

**A Street**

**Did I Ever Love You**

**My Oh My**

**Nevermind**

**Born In Chains**

**You Got Me Singing**

**Slow**

* * *

I'm slowing down the tune

I never liked it fast

You want to get there soon

I want to get there last

It's not because I'm old

It's not the life I led

I always liked it slow

That's what my momma said

I'm lacing up my shoe

But I don't want to run

I'll get here when I do

Don't need no starting gun

It's not because I'm old

It's not what dying does

I always liked it slow

Slow is in my blood

I always liked it slow

I never liked it fast

With you it's got to go

With me it's got to last

It's not because I'm old

It's not because I'm dead

I always liked it slow

That's what my momma said

All your moves are swift

All your turns are tight

Let me catch my breath

I thought we had all night

I like to take my time

I like to linger as it flies

A weekend on your lips

A lifetime in your eyes

I always liked it slow

I never liked it fast

With you it's got to go

With me it's got to last

I'm slowing down the tune

I never liked it fast

You want to get there soon

I want to get there last

So baby let me go

You're wanted back in town.

In case they want to know

I'm just trying to slow it down

**Almost Like The Blues**

* * *

I saw some people starving

There was murder, there was rape

Their villages were burning

They were trying to escape

I couldn't meet their glances

I was staring at my shoes

It was acid, it was tragic

It was almost like the blues

I have to die a little

Between each murderous thought

And when I'm finished thinking

I have to die a lot

There's torture and there's killing

And there's all my bad reviews

The war, the children missing

Lord, it's almost like the blues

So I let my heart get frozen

To keep away the rot

My father said I'm chosen

My mother said I'm not

I listened to their story

Of the Gypsies and the Jews

It was good, it wasn't boring

It was almost like the blues

There is no G–d in Heaven

And there is no Hell below

So says the great professor

Of all there is to know

But I've had the invitation

That a sinner can't refuse

And it's almost like salvation

It's almost like the blues

**Samson In New Orleans**

* * *

You said that you were with me

You said you were my friend

Did you really love the city

Or did you just pretend

You said you loved her secrets

And her freedoms hid away

She was better than America,

That's what I heard you say

You said how could this happen

You said how can this be

The remnant all dishonored

On the bridge of misery

And we who cried for mercy

From the bottom of the pit

Was our prayer so damn unworthy

The Son rejected it?

So gather up the killers

Get everyone in town

Stand me by those pillars

Let me take this temple down

The king so kind and solemn

He wears a bloody crown

So stand me by that column

Let me take this temple down

You said how could this happen

You said how can this be

The chains are gone from heaven

The storms are wild and free

There's other ways to answer

That certainly is true

Me, I'm blind with death and anger

And that's no place for you

There's a woman in the window

And a bed in Tinsel Town

I'll write you when it's over

Let me take this temple down

**A Street**

* * *

I used to be your favorite drunk

Good for one more laugh

Then we both ran out of luck

Luck was all we ever had.

You put on a uniform

To fight the Civil War,

You looked so good I didn't care

What side you were fighting for

It wasn't all that easy

When you up and walked away

But I'll save that little story

For another rainy day

I know the burden's heavy

As you wheel it through the night,

Some people say it's empty

But that don't mean it's light

You left me with the dishes

And a baby in the bath.

You're tight with the militias

You wear their camouflage.

You always said we're equal

So let me march with you

Just an extra in the sequel

To the old red white and blue

Baby don't ignore me

We were smokers, we were friends

Forget that tired story

Of betrayal and revenge.

I see the Ghost of Culture

With numbers on his wrist

Salute some new conclusion

Which all of us have missed

I cried for you this morning

And I'll cry for you again

But I'm not in charge of sorrow

So please don't ask me when

There may be wine and roses

And magnums of champagne

But we'll never, no we'll never

Ever be that drunk again

The party's over

But I've landed on my feet:

I'll be standing on this corner

Where there used to be a street

**Did I Ever Love You**

* * *

Did I ever love you

Did I ever need you

Did I ever fight you

Did I ever want to

Did I ever leave you

Was I ever able

Are we still leaning

Across the old table

Did I ever love you

Did I ever need you

Did I ever fight you

Did I ever want to

Was it ever settled

Was it ever over

And is it still raining

Back in November

The lemon trees blossom

The almond trees wither

Was I ever someone

Who could love you forever

Was it ever settled

Was it ever over

And is it still raining

Back in November

The lemon trees blossom

The almond trees whither

It's Spring and it's Summer

And it's Winter forever

Did I ever love you

Does it really matter

Did I ever fight you

You don't need to answer

Did I ever leave you

Was I ever able

Are we still leaning

Across the old table

Did I ever love you

Did I ever need you

Did I ever fight you

Did I ever want to

**My Oh My**

* * *

Wasn't hard to love you

Didn't have to try

Wasn't hard to love you

Didn't have to try

Held you for a little while

My Oh My Oh My

Drove you to the station

Never asked you why

Drove you to the station

Never asked you why

Held you for a little while

My Oh My Oh My

All the boys are waving

Trying to catch your eye

All the boys are waving

Trying to catch your eye

Held you for a little while

My Oh My Oh My

Wasn't hard to love you

Didn't have to try

Wasn't hard to love you

Didn't have to try

Held you for a little while

My Oh My Oh My

**Nevermind**

* * *

The war was lost

The treaty signed

I was not caught

I crossed the line

I was not caught

Though many tried

I live among you

Well disguised

I had to leave

My life behind

I dug some graves

You'll never find

The story's told

With facts and lies

I had a name

But never mind

Never mind

Never mind

The war was lost

The treaty signed

There's truth that lives

And truth that dies

I don't know which

So never mind

Your victory

Was so complete

That some among you

Thought to keep

A record of

Our little lives

The clothes we wore

Our spoons our knives

The games of luck

Our soldiers played

The stones we cut

The songs we made

Our law of peace

Which understands

A husband leads

A wife commands

And all of this

Expressions of

The Sweet Indifference

Some call Love

The High Indifference

Some call Fate

But we had Names

More intimate

Names so deep and

Names so true

They're blood to me

They're dust to you

There is no need

That this survive

There's truth that lives

And truth that dies

Never mind

Never mind

I live the life

I left behind

There's truth that lives

And truth that dies

I don't know which

So never mind

I could not kill

The way you kill

I could not hate

I tried I failed

You turned me in

At least you tried

You side with them

Whom you despise

This was your heart

This swarm of flies

This was once your mouth

This bowl of lies

You serve them well

I'm not surprised

You're of their kin

You're of their kind

Never mind

Never mind

The story's told

With facts and lies

You own the world

So never mind

Never mind

Never mind

I live the life

I left behind

I live it full

I live it wide

Through layers of time

You can't divide

My woman's here

My children too

Their graves are safe

From ghosts like you

In places deep

With roots entwined

I live the life

I left behind

**Born In Chains**

* * *

I was born in chains

But I was taken out of Egypt

I was bound to a burden

But the burden it was raised

Lord I can no longer

Keep this secret

Blessed is the name

The name be praised

I fled to the edge

Of the mighty sea of sorrow

Pursued by the riders

Of a cruel and dark regime

But the waters parted

And my soul crossed over

Out of Egypt

Out of Pharaoh's dream

Word of words

And measure of all measures

Blessed is the name

The name be blessed

Written on my heart

In burning letters

That's all I know

I cannot read the rest

I was idle with my soul

When I heard that you could use me

I followed very closely

My life remained the same

But then you showed me

Where you had been wounded

In every atom

Broken is the name

I was alone on the road

Your love was so confusing

And all my teachers told me

That I had myself to blame

But in the grip

Of sensual illusion

A sweet unknowing

Unified the name

Word of words

And measure of all measures

Blessed is the name

The name be blessed

Written on my heart

In burning letters

That's all I know

I cannot read the rest

I've heard the soul unfolds

In the chambers of its longing

And the bitter liquor sweetens

In the hammered cup

But all the ladders

Of the night have fallen

Only darkness now

To lift the longing up

**You Got Me Singing**

* * *

You got me singing

Even though the news is bad

You got me singing

The only song I ever had

You got me singing

Ever since the river died

You got me thinking

Of the places we could hide

You got me singing

Even though the world is gone

You got me thinking

I'd like to carry on

You got me singing

Even though it all looks grim

You got me singing

The Hallelujah hymn

You got me singing

Like a prisoner in a jail

You got me singing

Like my pardon's in the mail

You got me wishing

Our little love would last

You got me thinking

Like those people of the past

London, 2013. Rune Hellestad / Getty

**Can't Forget: A Souvenir Of The Grand Tour**

* * *

MAY 12, 2015
COLUMBIA

**Never Gave Nobody Trouble**

**Got A Little Secret**

**Never Gave Nobody Trouble**

* * *

Couldn't pay the mortgage

And it broke my baby's heart

I couldn't pay the mortgage

It broke my baby's heart

I never gave nobody trouble

But it ain't too late to start

Don't wanna break no window

Don't wanna burn no car

Don't wanna break no window

And I don't wanna burn your car

You got the right to all your riches

But you let it go too far

You sail the mighty ocean

On a yacht designed for you

You sail the mighty ocean

On a yacht designed for you

Yeah, but the ocean's fake with garbage

You ain't gonna make it through

I never gave nobody trouble

I'm alone and ordinary

I never gave nobody trouble

I'm alone and ordinary

I said, I never gave nobody trouble

But you know goddamn well that I can

**Got A Little Secret**

* * *

I've got a little secret

You've got to promise not to tell

I said, I've got a little secret

If you promise not to tell

I made a date in heaven, oh Lord

But I've been keepin' it in hell

I'd like to love you baby

But it don't seem right

I'd like to love you baby

It just don't seem right

You see, I've got this full-length mirror

And it ain't a pretty sight

I've got a little secret

You've got to promise not to tell

I've got a little secret

If you promise not to tell

I made a date in heaven

But I've been keepin' it in hell

I'd like to hold you baby

But my arms are old and weak

I would, I'd like to hold you baby

But my arms are old and weak

I was listenin' to your story

But I guess I fell asleep

I've got a little secret

If you promise not to tell

I said, I've got a little secret

You've got to promise not to tell

You see, I made a date in heaven

But I've been keepin' it in hell

It's kinda chilly in your kitchen

It must be ten below

It's kinda chilly in your kitchen

Must be ten below

I bought a ticket for the tropics

I must have lost it in the snow

I've got a little secret

If you promise not to tell

I've got a little secret

If you promise not to tell

You see, I made a date in heaven

But I've been keepin' it in hell

* * *

'La Manic': words and music by Georges Dor

'Choices': words and music by Billy Yates and Mike Curtis

Rotterdam, 2013. Paul Bergen / Getty

**You Want It Darker**

* * *

OCTOBER 21, 2016
COLUMBIA

**You Want It Darker**

**Treaty**

**On The Level**

**Leaving The Table**

**If I Didn't Have Your Love**

**Traveling Light**

**It Seemed The Better Way**

**Steer Your Way**

**String Reprise / Treaty**

**You Want It Darker**

* * *

If you are the dealer

I am out of the game

If you are the healer

I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory

Then mine must be the shame

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Magnified and sanctified

Be Thy Holy Name

Vilified and crucified

In the human frame

A million candles burning

For the help that never came

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Hineni Hineni

I'm ready, my Lord

There's a lover in the story

But the story is still the same

There's a lullaby for suffering

And a paradox to blame

But it's written in the scriptures

And it's not some idle claim

You want it darker

We kill the flame

They're lining up the prisoners

The guards are taking aim

I struggled with some demons

They were middle-class and tame

Didn't know I had permission

To murder and to maim

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Hineni Hineni

I'm ready, my Lord

Magnified and sanctified

Be Thy Holy Name

Vilified and crucified

In the human frame

A million candles burning

For the love that never came

You want it darker

We kill the flame

If you are the dealer

I'm out of the game

If you are the healer

I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory

Then mine must be the shame

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Hineni Hineni

I'm ready, my Lord

* * *

Co-written with Patrick Leonard

**Treaty**

* * *

I seen you change the water into wine

I seen you change it back to water too

I sit at your table every night

I try but I just don't get high with you

I wish there was a treaty we could sign

I do not care who takes this bloody hill

I'm angry and I'm tired all the time

I wish there was a treaty

I wish there was a treaty

Between your love and mine

They're dancing in the street – it's Jubilee

We sold ourselves for love but now we're free

I'm so sorry for the ghost I made you be

Only one of us was real – and that was me

I haven't said a word since you've been gone

That any liar couldn't say as well

I just can't believe the static coming on

You were my ground, my safe and sound

You were my aerial

The fields are crying out – it's Jubilee

We sold ourselves for love but now we're free

I'm so sorry for the ghost I made you be

Only one of us was real – and that was me

I heard the snake was baffled by his sin

He shed his scales to find the snake within

But born again is born without a skin

The poison enters into everything

I wish there was a treaty we could sign

I do not care who takes the bloody hill

I'm angry and I'm tired all the time

I wish there was a treaty

I wish there was a treaty

Between your love and mine

I wish there was a treaty we could sign

It's over now, the water and the wine

We were broken then but now we're borderline

I wish there was a treaty

I wish there was a treaty

Between your love and mine

**On The Level**

* * *

I knew that it was wrong

I didn't have a doubt

I was dying to get back home

And you were starting out

I said I best be moving on

You said, We have all day

You smiled at me like I was young

It took my breath away

Your crazy fragrance all around

Your secrets all in view

My lost, my lost was saying found

My don't was saying do

Let's keep it on the level

When I walked away from you

I turned my back on the devil

Turned my back on the angel, too

They ought to give my heart a medal

For letting go of you

When I turned my back on the devil

Turned my back on the angel, too

Now I'm living in this temple

Where they tell you what to do

I'm old and I've had to settle

On a different point of view

I was fighting with temptation

But I didn't want to win

A man like me don't like to see

Temptation caving in

Your crazy fragrance all around

You secrets in my view

My lost, my lost was saying found

My don't was saying do

Let's keep it on the level

When I walked away from you

I turned my back on the devil

Turned my back on the angel, too

They ought to give my heart a medal

For letting go of you

When I turned my back on the devil

Turned my back on the angel, too

* * *

Co-written with Sharon Robinson

**Leaving The Table**

* * *

I'm leaving the table

I'm out of the game

I don't know the people

In your picture frame

If I ever loved you

It's a crying shame

If I ever loved you

If I knew your name

You don't need a lawyer

I'm not making a claim

You don't need to surrender

I'm not taking aim

I don't need a lover

The wretched beast is tame

I don't need a lover

So blow out the flame

There's nobody missing

There is no reward

Little by little

We're cutting the cord

We're spending the treasure

That love cannot afford

I know you can feel it

The sweetness restored

I don't need a reason

For what I became

I've got these excuses

They're tired and lame

I don't need a pardon

There's no one left to blame

I'm leaving the table

I'm out of the game

**If I Didn't Have Your Love**

* * *

If the sun would lose its light

And we lived an endless night

And there was nothing left

That you could feel,

That's how it would be,

What the world would seem to me,

If I didn't have your love

To make it real

If the stars were all unpinned

And a cold and bitter wind

Swallowed up the world

Without a trace,

Well that's where I would be,

What my life would seem to me,

If I couldn't lift the veil

And see your face

If no leaves were on the tree

And no water in the sea

And the break of day

Had nothing to reveal,

That's how broken I would be,

What my life would seem to me,

If I didn't have your love

To make it real

If the sun would lose its light

And we lived an endless night

And there was nothing left

That you could feel;

If the sea were sand alone

And the flowers made of stone

And no one that you hurt

Could ever heal

That's how broken I would be,

What my life would seem to me,

If I didn't have your love

To make it real

* * *

Co-written with Patrick Leonard

**Traveling Light**

* * *

I'm traveling light

It's au revoir

My once so bright

My fallen star

I'm running late

They'll close the bar

I used to play

One mean guitar

I guess I'm just

Somebody who

Has given up

On the me and you

I'm not alone

I've met a few

Traveling light like

We used to do

Goodnight goodnight

My fallen star

I guess you're right

You always are

I know you're right

About the blues

You live some life

You'd never choose

I'm just a fool

A dreamer who

Forgot to dream

Of the me and you

I am not alone

I've met a few

Traveling light like

We used to do

Traveling light

It's au revoir

My once so bright

My fallen star

I'm running late

They'll close the bar

I used to play

One mean guitar

I guess I'm just

Somebody who

Has given up

On the me and you

I'm not alone

I've met a few

Traveling light like

We used to do

But if the road

Leads back to you

Must I forget

The things I knew

When I was friends

With one or two

Traveling light like

We used to do

I'm traveling light

* * *

Co-written with Patrick Leonard and Adam Cohen

**It Seemed The Better Way**

* * *

It seemed the better way

When first I heard him speak

But now it's much too late

To turn the other cheek

Sounded like the truth

Seemed the better way

Sounded like the truth

But it's not the truth today

I wonder what it was

I wonder what it meant

At first he touched on love

But then he touched on death

I better hold my tongue

I better take my place

Lift this glass of blood

Try to say the grace

* * *

Co-written with Patrick Leonard

**Steer Your Way**

* * *

Steer your way through the ruins of the Altar and the Mall

Steer your way through the fables of Creation and The Fall

Steer your way past the Palaces that rise above the rot

Year by year

Month by month

Day by day

Thought by thought

Steer your heart past the Truth you believed in yesterday

Such as Fundamental Goodness and the Wisdom of the Way

Steer your heart, precious heart, past the women whom you bought

Year by year

Month by month

Day by day

Thought by thought

Steer your way through the pain that is far more real than you

That has smashed the Cosmic Model that has blinded every View

And please don't make me go there, though there be a God or not

Year by year

Month by month

Day by day

Thought by thought

They whisper still, the injured stones, the blunted mountains weep

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make things cheap

And say the Mea Culpa, which you've probably forgot

Year by year

Month by month

Day by day

Thought by thought

Steer your way, O my heart, though I have no right to ask

To the one who was never, never equal to the task

Who knows he's been convicted, who knows he will be shot

Year by year

Month by month

Day by day

Thought by thought

Newport, 1967. David Gahr / Getty
**Other Songs**

* * *

SONGS WRITTEN BY LEONARD COHEN BUT RECORDED ONLY BY OTHER ARTISTS

**Priests**

**God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot**

**Song Of Bernadette**

**Way Down Deep**

**It Just Feels**

**Summertime**

**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 armor has turned to lace,

And all your armor 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

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.

* * *

Recorded by Judy Collins ( _Wildflowers_ in 1967), Richie Havens ( _Richard P. Havens, 1983_ in 1969) and Enrique Morente ( _Omega_ in Spanish, 1996)

David Gahr / Getty

**God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot**

* * *

God is alive, magic is afoot

God is alive, magic is afoot

God is alive, magic is afoot

God is afoot, magic is alive

Alive is afoot, magic never died

God never sickened

Many poor men lied

Many sick men lied

Magic never weakened

Magic never hid

Magic always ruled

God is afoot, God never died

God was ruler

Though his funeral lengthened

Though his mourners thickened

Magic never fled

Though his shrouds were hoisted

The naked God did live

Though his words were twisted

The naked magic thrived

Though his death was published

Round and round the world

The heart did not believe

Many hurt men wondered

Many struck men bled

Magic never faltered

Magic always lead

Many stones were rolled

But God would not lie down

Many wild men lied

Many fat men listened

Though they offered stones

Magic still was fed

Though they locked their coffers

God was always served

Magic is afoot, God is alive

Alive is afoot

Alive is in command

Many weak men hungered

Many strong men thrived

Though they boast of solitude

God was at their side

Nor the dreamer in his cell

Nor the captain on the hill

Magic is alive

Though his death was pardoned

Round and round the world

The heart would not believe

Though laws were carved in marble

They could not shelter men

Though altars built in parliaments

They could not order men

Police arrested magic and magic went with them

Mmmmm... for magic loves the hungry

But magic would not tarry

It moves from arm to arm

It would not stay with them

Magic is afoot

It cannot come to harm

It rests in an empty palm

It spawns in an empty mind

But magic is no instrument

Magic is the end

Many men drove magic

But magic stayed behind

Many strong men lied

They only passed through magic

And out the other side

Many weak men lied

They came to God in secret

And though they left Him nourished

They would not tell who healed

Though mountains danced before them

They said that God was dead

Though his shrouds were hoisted

The naked God did live

This I mean to whisper to my mind

This I mean to laugh within my mind

This I mean my mind to serve

Till service is but magic

Moving through the world

And mind itself is magic

Coursing through the flesh

And flesh itself is magic

Dancing on a clock

And time itself

The magic length of God

God is alive, magic is afoot

God is alive, magic is afoot

God is alive, magic is afoot...

* * *

Recorded twice by Buffy Saint-Marie ( _Illuminations_ , 1969 and _Up Where We Belong_ , 1996)

**Song Of Bernadette**

* * *

There was a child named Bernadette,

I heard the story long ago,

She saw the Queen of Heaven once

And kept the vision in her soul.

No one believed what she had seen,

No one believed what she heard

That there were sorrows to be healed

And mercy, mercy in this world.

So many hearts I find

Broke like yours and mine,

Torn by what we've done and can't undo.

I just want to hold you,

Won't you let me hold you

Like Bernadette would do

We've been around, we fall, we fly

We mostly fall, we mostly run

And every now and then we try

To mend the damage that we've done.

Tonight, tonight I cannot rest,

I've got this joy inside my breast

To think that I did not forget

That child, that song of Bernadette.

So many hearts I find

Broke like yours and mine,

Torn by what we've done and can't undo.

I just want to hold you,

Won't you let me hold you

Like Bernadette would do

* * *

Written by Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes and Bill Elliott. Recorded by Jennifer Warnes ( _Famous Blue Raincoat_ , 1986)

**Way Down Deep**

* * *

Way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way down deep

I wander with you in my sleep

I'm way down, way way down

Way way down deep

It came to me this morning

I was walking down the street

Was like my soul could taste you

And God, you tasted sweet

Finally I can breathe again

Finally I can speak

I've got you in the glory place

I've got you way down deep

I've got you way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

I wander with you in my sleep

I'm way down, way way down

Way way down deep

It's a funny feeling

But I cannot say I mind

I know that I'm dealing with

A love that's far from blind

I see every single angle

I look before I leap

And how else can I put it

When you've got me way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way down deep

I wander with you in my sleep

I'm way down, way way down

Way way down deep

Don't matter what we gave away

Was nothing we could keep

Don't matter what we didn't say

You know that talk is cheap

Forgive me if I hate you

You're a liar and a thief

But I've got you in the glory place

I've got you way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way down deep

I wander with you in my sleep

I'm way down, way way down

Way way down deep

Don't matter if the road is long

Don't matter if it's steep

Don't matter if the moon goes out

And darkness is complete

Don't matter if we lose our way

I know we're gonna meet

I've got you in the glory place

I've got you way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way way down

Way way down deep

You've got me way down, way down deep

I wander with you in my sleep

I'm way down, way way down

Way way down deep

* * *

Written by Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes and Amy La Television. Recorded by Jennifer Warnes ( _The Hunter_ , 1992)

**It Just Feels**

* * *

It feels so good

And it feels so right

It feels like I've been rescued

In the middle of the night

And all the tricks and all the angels

And all the dirty rotten deals

They don't count now

They've been canceled

And it feels, it just feels

Thank you Babe, thank you Babe

It feels so good

And it feels so right

It feels like I've been rescued

In the middle of the night

And the sweetest voice has spoken

And the deepest wound is healed

And the darkness is exploding

And it feels, it just feels

Thank you Babe, thank you Babe

It comes so sweet

And it comes so fast

It comes like windows breaking

I can take a breath at last

Thank you for the breaking

And thank you for the breath

And for sayin' it was nothing

Nothing meaning life or death

Thank you Babe, it just feels

* * *

Written by Leonard Cohen and David A. Stewart. Recorded by Sylvie Marechal ( _Voie Lactée_ , 1992)

**Summertime**

* * *

Summertime when will you come?

I wanna put my light things on

I wanna put my winter life away

Summertime I need a sunny day

I want those peaches on the table

Want the watermelon red

And the warm sun creeping through the window

To ease the outer pain

I want the sand out there to lie on

And the sea out there to swim

So my heart can take a holiday

From breaking over here

Summertime when will you come?

I wanna put my light things on

Wanna put my winter life away

Summertime I need a sunny day

And I want it dry forever

Wanna roll those windows down

Get the breeze back on my body

Get my feet back on the ground

I want the sand out there to lie on

And the sea out there to swim

So my heart can take a holiday

From breaking over here

Summertime when will you come?

I wanna put my light things on

I wanna put my winter life away

Summertime I need a sunny day

* * *

Written by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson. Recorded by Diana Ross ( _Red Hot Rhythm And Blues_ , 1987) and Roberta Flack ( _Set The Night To Music_ , 1991)
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# Loudon Wainwright III: Liner Notes...

_'Liner Notes is, unsurprisingly, as good as its author's songs, with moments of sharp humor alternating with real-life pain, and vivid reflections on love, death, and the whole damn thing. Loudon Wainwright is a true original: not like anyone else, just as he set out to be.'_ Salman Rushdie

In the late 1960s, Loudon Wainwright III established himself as a loner, deliberately standing outside the conventional. He recorded his first album in 1969, full of raw, angry poetry, but it was the 1972 novelty song 'Dead Skunk' that brought him popular recognition.

Wainwright's songs are as hilarious as they can be painful. In **Liner Notes** , he details the family history and fractured relationships that have informed him: the alcoholism, infidelities and competitiveness; the successes, joys and love. Wainwright writes poignantly about being a son, a parent, a brother and a grandfather while re-printing selections from his father's columns and meditating upon family, inspiration and art.

As plain-speaking on the page as in his songs, Wainwright lays everything bare in this heartfelt memoir of music and family. His lyrics adorn and inform the text, amplifying his prose and connecting his songs to the life he led.

_'He is unafraid and clear-eyed about the events of his life – and utterly engaging.'_ Rosanne Cash

_'Fans of the self-lacerating, painfully funny Wainwright III will find the memoir they want here'_ Kirkus Reviews

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# Jimmy Webb: The Cake And The Rain

Jimmy Webb is 'America's Songwriter'. His deep, complex songs have been recorded by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Carly Simon to R.E.M to Art Garfunkel to Donna Summer. He is the youngest man ever inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame, the only artist ever to win Grammy awards for music, lyrics _and_ orchestration, and his chart-topping career has, so far, lasted fifty years, most recently including a Kanye West rap and a new classical nocturne.

In 1969, Webb was a 'heavy pot smoker, sexual adventurer, and hopelessly liberal Democrat who hated the war in Vietnam'. Four years later, he was living in his gated mansion, lying for John Lennon and stashing hundred dollar bills and cocaine in his house-safe. During this whirlwind of hedonism, in 1973, Webb accidentally over-dosed on what proved to be street-level PCP. When he awoke from his coma, he wasn't even able to recognise a piano...

In **The Cake And The Rain** , Webb takes the reader through his life and his choices which led him to this tragic moment. Rich with a sense of time and place, with the voices of characters both lost and celebrated, and with the same youthful spirit which catapulted him into a moneyed and manic world of stardom, this is the sunning memoir of one of the greatest songwriters of all time: a man with unfathomable talent – and luck.

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**Index**

* * *

A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes

A Singer Must Die

A Street

A Thousand Kisses Deep

Ain't No Cure For Love

Alexandra Leaving

Almost Like The Blues

Amen

Anthem

Anyhow

Avalanche

Ballad Of The Absent Mare

Banjo

Because Of

Bird On The Wire

Boogie Street

Born In Chains

By The Rivers Dark

Came So Far For Beauty

Chelsea Hotel #2

Closing Time

Come Healing

Coming Back To You

Crazy To Love You

Dance Me To The End Of Love

Darkness

Dear Heather

Death Of A Ladies' Man

Democracy

Diamonds In The Mine

Did I Ever Love You

Different Sides

Do I Have To Dance All Night

Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On

Dress Rehearsal Rag

Everybody Knows

Famous Blue Raincoat

Field Commander Cohen

Fingerprints

First We Take Manhattan

God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot

Going Home

Got A Little Secret

Hallelujah

Heart With No Companion

Here It Is

Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye

Humbled In Love

Hunter's Lullaby

I Can't Forget

I Left A Woman Waiting

I Tried To Leave You

I'm Your Man

If I Didn't Have Your Love

If It Be Your Will

In My Secret Life

Iodine

Is This What You Wanted

It Just Feels

It Seemed The Better Way

Jazz Police

Joan Of Arc

Lady Midnight

Last Year's Man

Leaving Green Sleeves

Leaving The Table

Light As The Breeze

Love Calls You By Your Name

Love Itself

Lover Lover Lover

Lullaby

Master Song

Memories

Minute Prologue

Morning Glory

My Oh My

Never Any Good

Never Gave Nobody Trouble

Nevermind

Night Comes On

Nightingale

On That Day

On The Level

One of Us Cannot Be Wrong

Our Lady Of Solitude

Paper Thin Hotel

Passing Through

Please Don't Pass Me By (A Disgrace)

Priests

Queen Victoria

Samson In New Orleans

Seems So Long Ago, Nancy

Show Me The Place

Sing Another Song, Boys

Sisters Of Mercy

Slow

So Long, Marianne

Song Of Bernadette

Steer Your Way

Stories Of The Street

Story Of Isaac

Summertime

Suzanne

Take This Longing

Take This Waltz

Teachers

Tennessee Waltz

That Don't Make It Junk

The Butcher

The Captain

The Faith

The Future

The Great Event

The Guests

The Gypsy's Wife

The Land Of Plenty

The Law

The Letters

The Old Revolution

The Smokey Life

The Stranger Song

The Traitor

The Window

There For You

There Is A War

To A Teacher

Tonight Will Be Fine

Tower Of Song

Traveling Light

Treaty

True Love Leaves No Traces

Undertow

Waiting For The Miracle

Way Down Deep

Whither Thou Goest

Who By Fire

Why Don't You Try

Winter Lady

You Got Me Singing

You Have Loved Enough

You Know Who I Am

You Want It Darker
**Song Credits**

* * *

**Ain't No Cure For Love** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1986 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Alexandra Leaving** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Almost Like The Blues** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Amen** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2012 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Anthem** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1992 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Anyhow** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2012 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Avalanche** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Ballad Of The Absent Mare** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Banjo** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2012 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Because Of** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2004 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Bird On The Wire** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1968 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated / Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Boogie Street** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Born In Chains** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2014 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Butcher** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**By The Rivers Dark** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Came So Far For Beauty** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & John Lissauer. © Copyright 1979 Bad Monk Publishing. Copyright Control/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Captain** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1984 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Chelsea Hotel #2** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Closing Time** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1992 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Come Healing** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2012 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Kobalt Music Publishing Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Coming Back To You** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1984 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Crazy To Love You** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Anjani Thomas. © Copyright 2012 Little Fountain Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Dance Me To The End Of Love** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1984 Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Darkness** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2012 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Dear Heather** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2004 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Death Of A Ladies' Man** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Sony/ATV Tunes LLC/Mother Bertha Music Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Democracy** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1992 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Diamonds In The Mine** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1971 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Did I Ever Love You** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas, LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Different Sides** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2012 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Do I Have To Dance All Night** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1976 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/ABKCO Music Inc/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Dress Rehearsal Rag** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Everybody Knows** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 1988 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Faith** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2004 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Famous Blue Raincoat** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1971 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Field Commander Cohen** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Stranger Music Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Fingerprints** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing/EMI Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**First We Take Manhattan** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1987 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Future** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1992 Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot** Words by Leonard Cohen. Music by Leonard Cohen & Buffy Saint-Marie © Copyright 1970 Sony/ATV Songs LLC/Caleb-Music Co. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Going Home** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2012 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Got A Little Secret** Words & music by Leonard Cohen, Mitchell Watkins & Felicity Buirski. © Copyright 2015 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Great Event** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1997 Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Guests** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Gypsy's Wife** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Hallelujah** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1984 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Heart With No Companion** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1985 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Here It Is** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Humbled In Love** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Hunter's Lullaby** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1985 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**I Can't Forget** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1988 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**I Left A Woman Waiting** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**I Tried To Leave You** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**If I Didn't Have Your Love** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard © Copyright 2016 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**If It Be Your Will** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1984 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**I'm Your Man** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1988 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Improvisation** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1973 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**In My Secret Life** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Iodine** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Is This What You Wanted** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Stranger Music Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**It Just Feels** Words by Leonard Cohen & David Stewart. Music by David Stewart & John Turnbull. © Copyright 1992 Bad Monk Publishing Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Copyright Control. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**It Seemed The Better Way** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2016 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Jazz Police** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Jeffrey Fisher. © Copyright 1988 Bad Monk Publishing. EMI Music Publishing Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Joan Of Arc** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1971 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Lady Midnight** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1969 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Land Of Plenty** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Last Year's Man** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1971 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Law** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1984 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Leaving Green Sleeves** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Stranger Music Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Leaving The Table** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2016 Old Ideas LLC Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Letters** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2004 Sharon Robinson Songs/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Light As The Breeze** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1992 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Love Calls You By Your Name** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Love Itself** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Lover Lover Lover** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Lullaby** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2012 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Master Song** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Memories** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Minute Prologue** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1973 Stranger Music Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Morning Glory** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2004 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**My Oh My** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Never Any Good** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1995 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Never Gave Nobody Trouble** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2013 Old Ideas LLC Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Nevermind** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Night Comes On** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1985 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Nightingale** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Anjani Thomas. © Copyright 2004 Little Fountain Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Old Revolution** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**On That Day** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Anjani Thomas. © Copyright 2004 Little Fountain Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**On The Level** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2016 Sharon Robinson Songs/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Our Lady Of Solitude** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Paper Thin Hotel** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Please Don't Pass Me By (A Disgrace)** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1973 Stranger Music Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Priests** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Queen Victoria** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1972 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Music Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Samson In New Orleans** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Seems So Long Ago, Nancy** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Show Me The Place** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2012 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Sing Another Song, Boys** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1971 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**A Singer Must Die** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Sisters Of Mercy** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Chrysalis company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Slow** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Smokey Life** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**So Long, Marianne** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Song Of Bernadette** Words & music by Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes & William Elliott. © Copyright 1986 Bad Monk Publishing/Bill Elliott Music/Warnes Music. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Peermusic (UK) Limited/EMI Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Stages** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2015 Old Ideas LLC Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Steer Your Way** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2016 Old Ideas LLC Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Stories Of The Street** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Story Of Isaac** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1969 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Stranger Song** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**A Street** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Anjani Thomas. © Copyright 2014 Little Fountain Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**String Reprise / Treaty** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2016 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Summertime** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 1987 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Suzanne** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1966 Stranger Music Incorporated. TRO Essex Music Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Tacoma Trailer** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1992 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Take This Longing** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. MAM (Music Publishing) Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Take This Waltz** Words by Leonard Cohen & Federico García Lorca. Music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1986 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated/EMI Songs Espana SRL. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/EMI Songs Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Teachers** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**That Don't Make It Junk** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**There For You** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2004 Sharon Robinson Songs/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**There Is A War** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**A Thousand Kisses Deep** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson Songs/Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**To A Teacher** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2004 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Tonight Will Be Fine** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Tower Of Song** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1988 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Traitor** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Traveling Light** Words & music by Leonard Cohen, Patrick Leonard & Adam Cohen. © Copyright 2016 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited/Adam Cohen. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Treaty** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2016 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**True Love Leaves No Traces** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Phil Spector. © Copyright 1977 Mother Bertha Music Incorporated/Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. EMI Music Publishing Limited/ABKCO Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Undertow** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 2004 Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Villanelle For Our Time** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Frank Scott. © Copyright 2004 Old Ideas LLC. Copyright Control/Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Waiting For The Miracle** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 1992 Sharon Robinson Songs/Stranger Music Incorporated. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Way Down Deep** Words & music by Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes & Amy La Television. © Copyright 1992 Stranger Music Incorporated/Warnes Music/Amyzoomusic. Hornall Brothers Music Limited/Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Universal/MCA Music Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Whither Thou Goest** Words Adapted from the Book of Ruth. Music by Guy Singer. © Copyright 1954 Hill And Range Songs Inc. Carlin Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Who By Fire** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Why Don't You Try** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1974 Stranger Music Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**The Window** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1979 Bad Monk Publishing. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**Winter Lady** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1966 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Acquisition Incorporated. Chrysalis Songs Limited, a BMG Company. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**You Got Me Singing** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2014 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**You Have Loved Enough** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. & Sharon Robinson. © Copyright 2001 Sharon Robinson. Songs/Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Wixen Music UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**You Know Who I Am** Words & music by Leonard Cohen. © Copyright 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

**You Want It Darker** Words & music by Leonard Cohen & Patrick Leonard. © Copyright 2016 No Tomato Music/Old Ideas LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing/Kobalt Music Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
**Acknowledgements**

* * *

"And I thank you, I thank you", Leonard Cohen,
"keeper of truth, guardian of beauty", for the "blaze of light in every word",
and for singing "with a love so vast and shattered" to a multitude
of "heart[s] with no companion[s]" and "souls without a king",
and for making this world a better place.

May your memory be bound with the communal spirit
of the living who love you the world over.

I'm most grateful to David Barraclough, managing editor of Omnibus Press,
for inviting me to participate in this book and for the kindness and consideration
he has extended to me ever since the day I first met him.

It's been my good fortune to work with dream editor Jen Knoch.
Deep heartfelt gratitude to her for offering me her wise editorial acumen
and generosity of heart not only for this work, but also for
 _Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Word_ s ( _Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now_ , in the UK).
Many thanks, also, to John Lissauer, Emily Bindiger and Erin Dickins.

A most special thanks to Daniel Marom,
who rescued my interview with Leonard Cohen from decades of dust,
and to Inna Shapiro, who urged that it be published.
And to Marv Cohen for the butterfly dust.
Copyright © 2017 Omnibus Press

This edition © 2017 Omnibus Press

(A Division of Music Sales Limited, 14-15 Berners Street, London W1T 3LJ)

Order No: OP57057

Source ISBN: 978-17855-8435-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-78323-944-3

Version: 2017-08-18

The Author hereby asserts his / her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with Sections 77 to 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages.

'The Change', 'I Bury My Girlfriend', 'Hurry to Dinner', 'How To Speak Poetry' are all excerpted from Death Of A Lady's Man by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © Leonard Cohen, 1978. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited.

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of the photographs in this book, but one or two were unreachable. We would be grateful if the photographers concerned would contact us.

By clicking on the links in this eBook you, the reader, agree to Music Sales Ltd. collecting basic usage information to improve our service. This information is used solely for Music Sales Ltd. purposes and will not be used for marketing purposes or shared with third parties. If you have any questions, please email music@musicsales.co.uk

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

Design by Lora Findlay
Picture Research by Malka Marom and Dave Brolan
Cover image: London 1964, © Michael Putland / Getty

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## Contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. Digital Timeline
  4. My Leonard Cohen
  5. In The Shed
  6. At The House
  7. At Rehearsals
  8. In Leonard's Study
  9. _\- Songs Of Leonard Cohen_
  10. _\- Songs From A Room_
  11. _\- Songs Of Love And Hate_
  12. _\- Live Songs_
  13. _\- New Skin For The Old Ceremony_
  14. _\- Do I Have To Dance All Night_
  15. _\- Death Of A Ladies' Man_
  16. _\- Recent Songs_
  17. _\- Various Positions_
  18. _\- I'm Your Man_
  19. _\- The Future_
  20. _\- More Best Of Leonard Cohen_
  21. _\- Ten New Songs_
  22. _\- Dear Heather_
  23. _\- Live In London_
  24. _\- Old Ideas_
  25. _\- Popular Problems_
  26. _\- Can't Forget: A Souvenir Of The Grand Tour_
  27. _\- You Want It Darker_
  28. \- Other Songs
  29. Recommend to a Friend
  30. Also Available...
  31. Song Credits
  32. Acknowledgements

## Guide

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Title Page

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