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Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen (born September 21, 1934) Poet, songwriter, singer, and novelist.
Sourced:
- What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.
- Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night beside her,
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there,
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover.
And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you know that she will trust you,
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
- "Suzanne" Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed,
There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love,
And they will lean that way forever,
While Suzanne holds the mirror.
- "Suzanne" Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- 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.
- "Sisters of Mercy" - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- 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.
- "Sisters of Mercy" - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
Yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
In city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
But let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
- " Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
- Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
- "Bird on the Wire", Songs from a Room (1969)
- You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
- "Story of Isaac" Songs from a Room (1969)
- When it all comes down to dust I will kill you if I must, I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust I will help you if I must, I will kill you if I can.
- "Story of Isaac" Songs from a Room (1969)
- They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
- First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
- First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- Ah, you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win...
- First We Take Manhattan (1986)
- Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows.
- "Everybody Knows" (co-written with Sharon Robinson ) I'm Your Man (1988)
- If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to.
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you.
- "I'm Your Man", I'm Your Man (1988)
- Here I stand, I'm your man.
- "I'm Your Man", I'm Your Man (1988)
- Waiting for the miracle
There's nothing left to do.
I haven't been this happy
since the end of World War II.
- "Waiting for the Miracle" (co-written with Sharon Robinson) The Future (1992)
- If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
- "Waiting for the Miracle" (co-written with Sharon Robinson ) The Future (1992)
- People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.
- Los Angeles Times Sunday, (24 September 1995)
- This is the very contrary of dropping out. Most people can't wait to get home to their house or apartment and shut that door and turn on the TV. To me, that's dropping out.
- On his living at a Zen center - Los Angeles Times Sunday, (24 September 1995)
Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.
- The Favorite Game
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