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 discoloured 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.
Included on Live Songs (1973), though the song was not recorded in concert but in a cabin in Tennessee. The song is essentially a musical setting of the poem ‘Queen Victoria And Me’ from Flowers For Hitler. It should, of course, be read as a lyric rather than an historical portrait (in which capacity it would not score highly in an exam). known occasion on which Cohen has sung this song.
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 basis of this song is reportage – the story of a Montreal friend (the daughter of a Judge) whose free and promiscuous life ended in suicide. (Some have suggested that the song does not entirely reflect the facts of the case, but it is of course a work of art not journalism.) The text shown is taken from the version of the song included on Songs From A Room (1969). Note that the “forty five” referred to in the third stanza is clearly a (.45 calibre) gun, not a (45 rpm) record. The version included on Live Songs (1973), under the shortened title ‘Nancy’, Cohen achieves a subtle but significant change of focus. He replaces the opening phrase “It seems so long ago” with “The morning had not come”. This change economically adds descriptive colour to the portrayal of Nancy’s loneliness, but more importantly removes the singer from the action. The song is no longer a reminiscence and becomes more purely a portrait of dysfunctional misery.
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 lets leave these lovers wondering
why they cannot have each other,
and let’s sing another song, boys,
this one has grown old and bitter.
Included on Songs Of Love And Hate (1971) though in a live version rather a studio one.
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 travelling 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.
“I was in Edmonton, doing a tour by myself, I guess this was around ’67, and I was walking along one of the main streets of Edmonton. It was bitter cold and I knew no-one. I passed these two girls in a doorway and they invited me to stand in the doorway with them. Of course I did, and sometime later we found ourselves in my little hotel room, and the three of us were going to go to sleep together. Of course I had all sorts of erotic fantasies about what the evening might bring. We went to bed together, all jammed into this one small couch in this little hotel, and it became clear that wasn’t the purpose of the evening at all, and at one point in the night I found myself unable to sleep. I got up and by the moonlight, it was very very bright and the moonlight was being reflected off the snow, and I wrote that poem by the ice-reflected moonlight while these women were sleeping. It was one of the few songs I wrote from top to bottom without a line of revision. The words flowed and the melody flowed. By the time they woke up the next morning, it was dawn. I had this completed song to sing to them.” Included on Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1967).
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Included on Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1967), this song took a year to write and reflects the endgame of Cohen’s relationship with Marianne Ihlen. It is an early of example of some of Cohen’s perennial themes – touching on loneliness, freedom and existential fear. A live version was included on Field Commander Cohen – Tour Of 1979 (2001).
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 ...
Written by Cohen and Jennifer Warnes, who recorded it on Famous Blue Raincoat (1986). Cohen himself has never recorded it, though several others have.
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.
This song, included on Songs Of Leonard Cohen (1967) documents the despair and dislocation Cohen experienced in New York where he lived in the late Fifties. It is a somewhat immature song in that the singer’s personal pain is expressed too personally and too desperately to achieve the distillation of raw experience into poetry.
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 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.
Based on the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, this song from Songs From A Room (1969) reflects the contemporary conflict between the emerging counter-culture, with its demands for social and sexual freedom, and the hide-bound traditions of mainstream North American culture. Cohen nails his colours firmly to the counter-cultural mast.
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 crepping 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 wanna 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 Cohen and Sharon Robinson, it has been recorded by Diana Ross (on Red Hot Rhythm And Blues (1987)) and Roberta Flack (on Set The Night To Music (1991)), but never by Cohen himself.
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