now I am too thin and your love is too vast.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
I choose the rooms that I live in with care,
the windows are small and the walls almost bare,
there’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer;
I listen all night for your step on the stair.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me,
she’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be
and she’s moving her body so brave and so free.
If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory.
And I know from her eyes
and I know from her smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Cohen has described this song, included on his second album Songs From A Room (1969) as the first proper song he wrote, and it contains many elements that he would return to in his later work – the sensual and elegiac tone, the failing relationship, the rainbow moments seized in the face of damnation. The second stanza contains a very good example of the experienced poet at work at the beginning of his songwriting career. Following an by all accounts accurate description of his domestic arrangements, he writes “there’s only one bed and there’s only one …” – the listener expects “chair” – “prayer”, not only hitting the rhyme and achieving surprise but leading neatly into and enhancing the succeeding line “I listen all night for your step on the stair”. The live version included on Live Songs (1973) contains two additional stanzas which, coupled with its harsher arrangement, infuse it with a bitter sarcasm absent from the original.
Tower Of Song
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don’t let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song
Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song
I see you standing on the other side
I don’t know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We’ll never have to lose it again
Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
A brilliantly achieved essay on the art of songwriting, this song was included on I’m Your Man (1988). Cohen has called it “one of the three or four real songs that I’ve ever written”. It surely entitles him to the rent-free lease of room in the Tower. Hank Williams (1923-1953) was a country music titan and one of the most influential songwriters of the twentieth century. A notable cover version by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds was included on the tribute album I’m Your Fan (1991).
True Love Leaves No Traces
As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will
Through windows in the dark
The children come, the children go
Like arrows with no targets
Like shackles made of snow
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It’s lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun
As a falling leaf may rest
A moment on the air
So your head upon my breast
So my hand upon your hair
And many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So we will endure
When one is gone and far
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It’s lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun
Reusing two stanzas from a 1961 poem ‘As Mist Leaves No Scar’, this song from Death Of A Ladies’ Man (1977) reads on the page like a typical Cohen lyric of his early period. The musical treatment given it by Phil Spector, in one of his more manic phases, shows the distance Cohen had travelled musically at that time, but also suggests that he had travelled involuntarily. As such, historically if not lyrically, it represents a nadir in Cohen’s career.
Undertow
I set out one night
When the tide was low
There were signs in the sky
But I did not know
I’d be caught in the grip
Of the undertow
Ditched on a beach
Where the sea hates to go
With a child in my arms
And a chill in my soul
And my heart the shape
Of a begging bowl
A short but effective song, economically exhibiting Cohen’s poetic skill, it was included on Dear Heather (2004).
Waiting For The Miracle
Baby, I’ve been waiting,
I’ve been waiting night and day.
I didn’t see the time,
I waited half my life away.
There were lots of invitations
and I know you sent me some,
but I was waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
I know you really loved me.
but, you see, my hands were tied.
I know it must have hurt you,
it
