She took his much admired oriental frame of mind
and the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind
She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine --
“This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.”
He tried to make a final stand beside the railway track
She said, “The art of longing’s over and it’s never coming back.”
She took his tavern parliament, his cap, his cocky dance,
she mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache.
The last time that I saw him he was trying hard to get
a woman’s education but he’s not a woman yet
And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy
who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy.
So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed
It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.
It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.
It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.
A bleak and somewhat ungallant song, it was recorded in chaotic circumstances and included on the album of the same name (1977).
Democracy
It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don’t pretend to understand at all.
It’s coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.
It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on ...
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Included on The Future (1992), the recorded song is a selection from eighty-odd stanzas that Cohen had written. It dates from around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the pro-democracy protests, brutally suppressed, in Tiananmen Square. As a foreign national who has long lived and worked in the USA, Cohen reflects in this song the ambiguities of the “candid friend” – admiring and critical, hopeful and unillusioned.
Diamonds In The Mine
The woman in blue, she’s asking for revenge,
the man in white -- that’s you -- says he has no friends.
The river is swollen up with rusty cans
and the trees are burning in your promised land.
And there are no letters in the mailbox,
and there are no grapes upon the vine,
and there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore,
and there are no diamonds in the mine.
Well, you tell me that your lover has a broken limb,
you say you’re kind of restless now and it’s on account of him.
Well, I saw the man in question, it was just the other night,
he was eating up a lady where the lions and Christians fight.
And there are no letters in the mailbox
and there are no grapes upon the vine,
and there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore,
and there are no diamonds in the mine.
Ah, there is no comfort in the covens of the witch,
some very clever doctor went and sterilized the bitch,
and the only man of energy, yes the revolution’s pride,
he trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child.
And there are no letters in the mailbox,
oh no, there are no, no grapes upon your vine,
and there are, there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore,
and there are no diamonds in your mine.
And there are no letters in the mailbox,
and there are no grapes upon the vine,
and there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore,
and there are no diamonds in your mine.
Included on Songs Of Love And Hate (1971), this song marks an evolutionary stage in Cohen’s songwriting. There is a greater sense of humour here than is expressed in his earlier songs, an effect perhaps easier to achieve because the writer/singer is not a protagonist in the song.
Do I Have To Dance All Night
I’m Forty-One, the moon is full,
you make love very well.
You touch me like I touch myself,
I like you Mademoiselle.
You’re so fresh and you’re so new,
I do enjoy you, Miss.
There’s nothing I would rather do
than move around just like this
But do I have to dance all night?
But do I have to dance all night?
Ooh tell me, Bird of Paradise,
do I have
