I’m Your Man was a renaissance of the old singer poet and following it in 1992 came The Future,, another well-received album. ‘Waiting For The Miracle’ is its existential exploration of the idea of postponing commitment on the grounds that perfection awaits even the most dispossessed. ‘Anthem’ is a glorious song in praise of the imperfection of everything. It is saved from being perfectly pessimistic by one magical couplet: ‘There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in’. ‘Closing Time’ would have become the ultimate show-stopper even if Cohen had not been in the habit of ending his live shows with it. Complete with a great tune and a romping, stomping lyric depicting a thrillingly hellish nightclub that sounds a lot like some sort of purgatory, ‘Closing Time’ is an irresistible song.
In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk in the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles and the general feeling among his fans and occasional collaborators was that he had withdrawn for good from writing and recording. However he returned to the city in 1999 and seemed to be re-engaging with his former career. Three albums that emerged from 2001 onwards were variously experimental, none moreso than Dear Heather (2004) which baffled almost everyone. Leonard Cohen was now 70 and was obliged to restore his lost retirement fund by embarking on that punishing series of international tours. It might have seemed unreasonable to expect any more albums from him at all, let alone great ones. Then, when Cohen reached 80, along came Popular Problems (2014) featuring the darkly mischievous ‘Almost Like The Blues’, a musical essay about life’s tragedies imitating art. Still it was not the end. Two years later, in the year of his death, came You Want It Darker (2016), an album that would have stood out at any stage of Leonard Cohen’s long tenure in the tower of song. The title song, ‘You Want It Darker’, evokes a greater power that seems to demand that enlightenment should always be extinguished. Given that Cohen knew he was dying, it is hard to interpret the repeated lines ‘Hineni, hineni/ I’m ready my Lord’ as anything but a cry of acceptance. Hineni means ‘Here I am’. With typical grace and in one of the final acts of his life, he sent the dying Marianne Ihlen a loving note wishing her a good journey and saying that he would be joining her very soon.
Graham Vickers
Contents
A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes
A Singer Must Die
A Thousand Kisses Deep
Ain’t No Cure For Love
Alexandra Leaving
Anthem
Avalanche
Ballad Of The Absent Mare
Because Of
Bird On The Wire
Boogie Street
By The Rivers Dark
Came So Far For Beauty
Chelsea Hotel # 2
Closing Time
Coming Back To You
Dance Me To The End Of Love
Dear Heather
Death Of A Ladies’ Man
Democracy
Diamonds In The Mine
Do I Have To Dance All Night
Don’t Go Home With Your Hard On
Dress Rehearsal Rag
Everybody Knows
Famous Blue Raincoat
Field Commander Cohen
Fingerprints
First We Take Manhattan
God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot
Hallelujah
Heart With No Companion
Here It Is
Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye
Humbled In Love
Hunter’s Lullaby
I Can’t Forget
I Left A Woman Waiting
I Tried To Leave You
If It Be Your Will
I’m Your Man
In My Secret Life
Iodine
Is This What You Wanted
It Just Feels
Jazz Police
Joan Of Arc
Lady Midnight
Last Year’s Man
Leaving Green Sleeves
Light As The Breeze
Love Calls You By Your Name
Love Itself
Lover Lover Lover
Master Song
Memories
Minute Prologue
Morning Glory
Never Any Good
Night Comes On
Nightingale
On That Day
One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
Our Lady Of Solitude
Paper Thin Hotel
Please Don’t Pass Me By (A Disgrace)
Priests
Queen Victoria
Seems So Long Ago, Nancy
Sing Another Song Boys
Sisters Of Mercy
So Long, Marianne
Song Of Bernadette
Stories Of The Street
Story Of Isaac
Summertime
Suzanne
Take This Longing
Take This Waltz
Teachers
Tennessee Waltz
That Don’t Make It Junk
The Butcher
The Captain
The Faith
The Future
The Great Event
The Guests
The Gypsy’s Wife
The Law
The Letters
The Old Revolution
The Smokey Life
The Stranger Song
The Traitor
The Window
There For You
There Is A War
To A Teacher
Tonight Will Be Fine
Tower Of Song
True Love Leaves No Traces
Undertow
Waiting For The Miracle
Way Down Deep
Who By Fire
Why Don’t You Try
Winter Lady
You Have Loved Enough
You Know Who I Am
Digital Timeline
Click below for an interactive Digital Timeline of Leonard Cohen's life and experience his poetry through music and video ...
Click here
Hear the Music
Click below to listen to the songs included in The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen. Additionally, click the Spotify logo at the head of each chapter to hear the song, as originally sung by Leonard Cohen and as interpereated by others.
Click here
A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes
A bunch of lonesome and very quarrelsome heroes
were smoking out along the open road;
the night was very dark and thick between them,
each man beneath his ordinary load.
“I’d like to tell my story,”
said one of them so young and bold,
“I’d like to tell my story,
before I turn into gold.”
But no one really could hear him,
the night so dark and thick and green;
well I guess that these heroes must always live there
where you and I have only been.
Put out your cigarette, my love,
you’ve been alone too long;
and some of us are very hungry now
to hear what it is you’ve done that was so wrong.
I sing this for the crickets,
I sing this for the army,
I sing this for your children
and for all who do not need me.
“I’d like to tell my story,”
said one of them so bold,
“Oh yes, I’d like to tell my story
‘cause you know I feel I’m turning into gold.”
Included on Songs From A Room (1969), the third stanza had previously appeared as the second stanza of ‘New Poem’ in Cohen’s Selected Poems 1956-1968. There are no reports of Cohen ever singing this song in public.
A Singer Must Die
Now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess.
Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is Yes.
Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine,
I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline.
And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice,
a singer must die for the
