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 by Sharon Robinson and included on I’m Your Man (1988), this song’s bitter-sweet cynicism is mitigated by its suggestion that we, his audience, share the knowledge the singer imparts; it is not just a dispatch from a lone reporter at the far frontier of despair.
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
On of Cohen’s best-known songs, and one of his most technically accomplished lyrics, it was included on Songs Of Love And Hate (1971). Cohen’s friends from the time all report his attachment to a much-repaired Burberry coat, originally bought in London in 1959. The phrase “to go clear” is a term of art in Scientology, a movement with which Cohen was briefly involved in 1968. The clues suggest that the letter is written not only by but to “L.Cohen”, that he is writing a past self – the “brother” and “killer” of a still living only son. Clinton Street is a street in the Brooklyn Heights area of New York City. ‘Lili Marlene’ was a song popular on both sides during World War II.
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 favourite
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.
Cohen visited Israel in 1973, as the storms clouds gathered that would eventually precipitate the Yom Kippur War. After his visit, he flew to Ethiopia where, ensconced in the Imperial Hotel in Asmara, he worked on several songs – among them this one, which was included on New Skin For The Old Ceremony (1974). A live version was included on Field Commander Cohen – Tour Of 1979 (2001).
Fingerprints
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
