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.
Co-written by Sharon Robinson, this song was included on Ten New Songs (2001, though Cohen had begun work on it (under the title ‘My Secret Life’ as early as 1988). The final phrase – “it’s crowded and cold in my secret life” – is an intriguing observation by an artist who has lived in and reported on both the social world and solitude.
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
Cohen played an earlier version of this song, co-written by John Lissauer, on his 1975 tour, when it was title ‘Guerrero’. It was completely rewritten for its inclusion on Death Of A Ladies’ Man (1977).
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 ...
Based on ‘Poem # 31’ from The Energy Of Slaves, this song was included on New Skin For The Old Ceremony (1974). Though its structure is simple, the song exemplifies a technique Cohen has frequently used – a series of different examples or images of a basic motif, in this case the “you were … I was …” formula.
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 cancelled
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 Cohen and David A Stewart, Cohen himself has never recorded it. It was recorded by Sylvie Marechal and included on her album Voie Lactée (1992).
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 by Jeff Fisher, this song’s origins lie in artistic arguments between Cohen and his musicians during the recording of I’m Your Man. The band would try to infiltrate augmented fifths and sevenths into the music, at which Cohen would object that he didn’t want that kind of jazzy sound on his songs. Teased for being a “jazz policeman”, he decided to incorporate their banter into a song. J. Paul Getty I (1892-1976) was an American industrialist, reputedly the richest living American in 1957. His son, J. Paul Getty II (1932-2003), was a philanthropist, book collector and cricket lover.
Joan Of Arc
Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour 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 t
alk 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?
Included on Songs Of Love And Hate (1971) and also on Live In Concert (1994). The live version, co-sung with Julie Christensen, is particularly interesting in that it elucidates more clearly than when Cohen sings it alone the different voices in the song. Following the live version, on can see that the first stanza has two voices (the Narrator and Joan herself), the second three (Narrator, Joan and Fire), and the third two (Joan and Narrator). The fourth stanza, all of which Cohen sings on the live voice, is more complicated. Clearly, it is begun by the Narrator. However, the final four lines were italicized on the album’s sleevenotes, suggesting a fourth voice, whom we may call the Bystander and who delivers the song’s “lesson”.
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.”
This deceptively simple song was included on Songs From A Room (1969). At first sight, it appears to be the simple record of a seduction. On closer reading, it is clearly much more complex than that. Who is Lady Midnight? Is she a real woman or a symbol? Does she represent “the dark night of the soul” or is she Death itself? And does the “sweet early morning” through which the singer walks signify a victory over the darkness or a surrender to it? Reader, judge for yourself.
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.
Included on Songs Of Love And Hate (1971), this song is an example of a curious phenomenon that often occurs in Cohen’s work – the use of overtly religious phraseology and references (as here Bethlehem, Babylon, Jesus and Cain) in songs with a secular theme, and the avoidance of them in songs with a spiritual or religious theme.
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 ...
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.
This song, from New Skin For The Old Ceremony (1974), contains echoes, both in its melody and in the consciously archaic language with which it opens, of the famous sixteenth-century air ‘Greensleeves’, allegedly written by King Henry VIII and certainly written by a member of his court.
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.
&nbs
p; 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 ...
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 ...
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
Included on The Future (1992). The St Lawrence River flows from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, passing on its way to the south of Montreal Island.
Love Calls You By Your Name
You thought that it could never happen
The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen: Enhanced Edition Page 7