I want her pure as power, I want her skin slightly musty with petticoats
will you wash the easy bidet out of her head?
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
