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...
And look dear heart, look at the virgin
Look how she welcomes him into her gown
Yes, and mark how the stranger’s cold armour
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...
Included on Recent Songs (1979), this deals with a familiar early period Cohen theme – the failure of a relationship – but with a less astringent, more adult attitude than had tended to muster previously.
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 we’ll never cannot 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
This song, included on Various Positions (1984), seems at first a simple re-working of an old folk song. But it is much more complex than that. For what has the hunter gone “a-hunting”? Who, and of which gender, is the narrator? The context suggests she is the wife-and-mother of the hunter and his child, and that he has not gone hunting for food or fur or the necessaries of life. One plausible reading of the song is that it is the carnal world which the hunter is seeking, the mother and child left behind representing the spiritual world abandoned in that quest. Such an interpretation would certainly be consistent with Cohen’s known themes and interests at the time wrote the song.
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
This song, included on I’m Your Man (1988), originally had an entirely different set of lyrics, entitled “Taken Out Of Egypt” and dealing with the Jewish Exodus as a ‘metaphor for the journey of the soul from bondage into freedom”. This had taken Cohen several months to write, but in the studio he found himself unable to sing it. These lyrics were hastily written so as not to waste the melody, with a somewhat less august and portentous theme. Perhaps, in what is essentially an extended literary riff on an old joke, the song itself journeyed out of bondage!
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
The first two stanzas were taken from “Poem # 2” in his collection The Energy Of Slaves; the third was newly written for this song, which was included on Death Of A Ladies’ Man (1977). In the original poem, the protagonist tells his “faithless wife” to go to sleep. In the song, he suggests they stay awake.
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.
Included on New Skin For The Old Ceremony (1974), this is one of the shortest songs Cohen has recorded, although in concert it is often one of the longest, Cohen using it as a vehicle for introducing the band.
If It Be Your Will
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice
