Leonard Cohen
From Wikiquote
Leonard Norman Cohen (born 1934-09-21) is a Canadian poet, songwriter, singer, and novelist.
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[edit] Sourced
- What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.
- Beautiful Losers (1966)
[edit] Song Lyrics
- 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.- "Suzanne" Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- 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.- "Suzanne" Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- 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.- "Sisters of Mercy" - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control,
It begins with your family, and soon it comes round 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.- "Sisters of Mercy"- Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- When 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.- "Sisters of Mercy"- Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- 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.- "Sisters of Mercy" - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
- 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" - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- 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", Songs from a Room (1969)
- Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows
- "The Old Revolution", Songs from a Room (1969)
- 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.- "Story of Isaac" Songs from a Room (1969)
- 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.- "Story of Isaac" Songs from a Room (1969)
- 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.- First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- 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.- First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- Ah, you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win...
- First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- 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" (co-written with Sharon Robinson) I'm Your Man (1988)
- 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.- "I'm Your Man", I'm Your Man (1988)
- Here I stand, I'm your man.
- "I'm Your Man", I'm Your Man (1988)
- Waiting for the miracle
There's nothing left to do.
I haven't been this happy
since the end of World War II.- "Waiting for the Miracle" (co-written with Sharon Robinson) The Future (1992)
- 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.- "Waiting for the Miracle" (co-written with Sharon Robinson) The Future (1992)
- I've seen the future, brother; it is murder.
- "The Future", The Future (1992)
- People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.
- This is the very contrary of dropping out. Most people can't wait to get home to their house or apartment and shut that door and turn on the TV. To me, that's dropping out.
- Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.- "The Favorite Game"
- I fought against the bottle
but I had to do it drunk- "That Don't Make It Junk", Ten New Songs (2001)
- "You have loved enough, now let me be the lover." You could say that God is speaking to you or the cosmos, or your lover. It just means, like, Forget it. Lean back and be loved by all that is already loving you. It is your effort at love that is preventing you from experiencing it.
- Interview on the 10 New Songs site
- complain complain that's all you've done ever since we lost, if it's not the crucifixion then it's the holocaust
- "the captain", "Various positions"
- 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
- "The Stranger Song" (1966)
- 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
- "Death of a Ladies' Man" (1977)
- 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" (1984)
- 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" (1988).
- Ring the bells that still can ring/ Forget your perfect offering/ There is a crack in everything/ It's how the light gets in.
- "Anthem" (1992)
- Well, we're drinkin' and we're dancin'/ but there's nothin' really happenin'/ and the place is dead as Heaven on Saturday night.
- "Closing Time" (1992)
- 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."
- "Democracy" (1992)
- And sometimes when the night is slow/ The wretched and the meek/ We gather up our hearts and go/ A Thousand Kisses Deep.
- "A Thousand Kisses Deep" (2001)
- Transparent, weightless, luminous/ Uncovering the two of us/ On that fundamental ground/ Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound/ And half the perfect world is found."
- "Half the Perfect World" (2006)
- 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."
- "Chelsea Hotel #2"
- Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like mine win 'Vocalist of the Year'.
- First words of his speech accepting the Juno Award for Best Male Vocalist in Canada (1992)
- I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.
- Interview in The Daily Telegraph (1993)
- Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what I was described as for a long, long time; you know, people said I only knew three chords when I knew five.
- Interview with BBC Radio 1FM (1994)
- I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work—just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.
- Interview with BBC Radio 1FM (1994)
[edit] Poetry
- Rust rust rust
in the engines of love and time"- "Front Lawn", Flowers for Hitler (1964)
- and you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover- "Song", The Spice-Box of Earth (1961)
- It was only when you walked away I saw you had the perfect ass. Forgive me for not falling in love with your face or your conversation.
- The Energy of Slaves (1972)
[edit] Unsourced
- We taught him how to dress, and he taught us how to live, forever.
- On Irving Layton.
- I know that there is an Eye that watches all of us. There is a Judgment that weighs everything we do. And before this great force which is greater than any government, I stand in awe and I kneel in respect.
- Live at the Sala Kongresowa, Warsaw, (22 March 1985)
[edit] Quotes about Cohen
- Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/ So I can sigh eternally
- Nirvana, "Pennyroyal Tea" (1993)
- I don't want, no I really don't want/ To be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen/ I just want to be my Dad.
- Rufus Wainwright, "Want"
- What if I had to/ Live here without you/ Oh, I don't really want to know/ Where you goin', Lenny Cohen?
- Adam Again, "l.c." (1995)
- possibly referring to Cohen's 1994 retreat to Mount Baldy Zen Center
- But I was caught, like a fleeting thought/ Stuck inside Leonard Cohen's mind
- Mercury Rev, "A Drop In Time" (2001)
- You're a Leonard Cohen song
- Better Than Ezra, "Under You" (1998)
- In the Canadian film Hardcore Logo, a Canadian punk rocker suggests "Faster, Leonard Cohen! Die! Die!" as a possible band name. This also refers to the film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
- I tell you who I also think is wonderful is a chap called Leonard Cohen … do you know him? […] He's remarkable. I mean, the orchestration is fantastic and the words, the lyrics and everything, he's a remarkable man, and has this incredibly sort of laid back gravelly voice, it's terrific stuff I think. I enjoy jazz and things…
- Prince Charles, in a 2006 interview
- No one says naked like Leonard Cohen.
- Tom Robbins, in liner notes on the Cohen tribute album, "Tower of Song."
- No one ever listens to me. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record.
- Lament by the character Neil in British comedy series The Young Ones
[edit] External links
- Official website - Leonardcohen.com
- The Leonard Cohen Files
- Bird on a Wire - Tribute site
- Lyrics of Leonard Cohen
- Leonard Cohen's Montreal
