| Leonard Cohen |
  
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 More best of1998, Sony Music, - 1. Everybody Knows 2. I'm Your Man 3. Take This Waltz 4. Tower Of Song 5. Anthem 6. Democracy 7. The Future 8. Closing Time 9. Dance Me To The End Of Love 10. Suzanne 11. Hallelujah 12. Never Any Good 13. The Great Event 1. Everybody Knows (co-written by Sharon Robinson) 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 that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died Everybody talking to their pockets Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long stem rose Everybody knows Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Ah give or take a night or two Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just had to meet Without your clothes And everybody knows Everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows And everybody knows that it's now or never Everybody knows that it's me or you And everybody knows that you live forever Ah when you've done a line or two Everybody knows the deal is rotten Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows And everybody knows that the Plague is coming Everybody knows that it's moving fast Everybody knows that the naked man and woman Are just a shining artifact of the past Everybody knows the scene is dead But there's gonna be a meter on your bed That will disclose What everybody knows And everybody knows that you're in trouble Everybody knows what you've been through From the bloody cross on top of Calvary To the beach of Malibu Everybody knows it's coming apart Take one last look at this Sacred Heart Before it blows And everybody knows Everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows Oh everybody knows, everybody knows That's how it goes Everybody knows Everybody knows 2. I'm Your Man 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 If you want a partner Take my hand Or if you want to strike me down in anger Here I stand I'm your man If you want a boxer I will step into the ring for you And if you want a doctor I'll examine every inch of you If you want a driver Climb inside Or if you want to take me for a ride You know you can I'm your man Ah, the moon's too bright The chain's too tight The beast won't go to sleep I've been running through these promises to you That I made and I could not keep Ah but a man never got a woman back Not by begging on his knees Or I'd crawl to you baby And I'd fall at your feet And I'd howl at your beauty Like a dog in heat And I'd claw at your heart And I'd tear at your sheet I'd say please, please I'm your man And if you've got to sleep A moment on the road I will steer for you And if you want to work the street alone I'll disappear for you If you want a father for your child Or only want to walk with me a while Across the sand I'm your man 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 3. Take This Waltz Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry There's a lobby with nine hundred windows There's a tree where the doves go to die There's a piece that was torn from the morning And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Take this waltz, take this waltz Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws Oh I want you, I want you, I want you On a chair with a dead magazine In the cave at the tip of the lily In some hallways where love's never been On a bed where the moon has been sweating In a cry filled with footsteps and sand Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Take this waltz, take this waltz Take its broken waist in your hand This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz With its very own breath of brandy and Death Dragging its tail in the sea There's a concert hall in Vienna Where your mouth had a thousand reviews There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking They've been sentenced to death by the blues Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture With a garland of freshly cut tears? Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Take this waltz, take this waltz Take this waltz it's been dying for years There's an attic where children are playing Where I've got to lie down with you soon In a dream of Hungarian lanterns In the mist of some sweet afternoon And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow All your sheep and your lilies of snow Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Take this waltz, take this waltz With its "I'll never forget you, you know!" This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz ... And I'll dance with you in Vienna I'll be wearing a river's disguise The hyacinth wild on my shoulder, My mouth on the dew of your thighs And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, With the photographs there, and the moss And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty My cheap violin and my cross And you'll carry me down on your dancing To the pools that you lift on your wrist Oh my love, Oh my love Take this waltz, take this waltz It's yours now. It's all that there is 4. 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 Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back There moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower of Song 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 5. Anthem The birds they sang at the break of day Start again I heard them say Don't dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be. Ah the wars they will be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again bought and sold and bought again the dove is never free. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. We asked for signs the signs were sent: the birth betrayed the marriage spent Yeah the widowhood of every government -- signs for all to see. I can't run no more with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from me. Ring the bells that still can ring ... You can add up the parts but you won't have the sum You can strike up the march, there is no drum Every heart, every heart to love will come but like a refugee. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in. 6. 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. 7. The Future Give me back my broken night my mirrored room, my secret life it's lonely here, there's no one left to torture Give me absolute control over every living soul And lie beside me, baby, that's an order! Give me crack and anal sex Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture Give me back the Berlin wall give me Stalin and St Paul I've seen the future, brother: it is murder. Things are going to slide, slide in all directions Won't be nothing Nothing you can measure anymore The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul When they said REPENT REPENT I wonder what they meant When they said REPENT REPENT I wonder what they meant When they said REPENT REPENT I wonder what they meant You don't know me from the wind you never will, you never did I'm the little jew who wrote the Bible I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all but love's the only engine of survival Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear, to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going any further And now the wheels of heaven stop you feel the devil's riding crop Get ready for the future: it is murder Things are going to slide ... There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code Your private life will suddenly explode There'll be phantoms There'll be fires on the road and the white man dancing You'll see a woman hanging upside down her features covered by her fallen gown and all the lousy little poets coming round tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson and the white man dancin' Give me back the Berlin wall Give me Stalin and St Paul Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima Destroy another fetus now We don't like children anyhow I've seen the future, baby: it is murder Things are going to slide ... When they said REPENT REPENT ... 8. Closing Time Ah we're drinking and we're dancing and the band is really happening and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high And my very sweet companion she's the Angel of Compassion she's rubbing half the world against her thigh And every drinker every dancer lifts a happy face to thank her the fiddler fiddles something so sublime all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops: it's CLOSING TIME Yeah the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops: it's CLOSING TIME Ah we're lonely, we're romantic and the cider's laced with acid and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?" And the moon is swimming naked and the summer night is fragrant with a mighty expectation of relief So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes and up the ladder to the tower where the blessed hours chime and I swear it happened just like this: a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss the Gates of Love they budged an inch I can't say much has happened since but CLOSING TIME I swear it happened just like this: a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss the Gates of Love they budged an inch I can't say much has happened since CLOSING TIME I loved you for your beauty but that doesn't make a fool of me: you were in it for your beauty too and I loved you for your body there's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you And I loved you when our love was blessed and I love you now there's nothing left but sorrow and a sense of overtime and I missed you since the place got wrecked And I just don't care what happens next looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess it's CLOSING TIME Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked By the winds of change and the weeds of sex looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess it's CLOSING TIME Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing but there's nothing really happening and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night And my very close companion gets me fumbling gets me laughing she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth except to say it isn't worth a dime And the whole damn place goes crazy twice and it's once for the devil and once for Christ but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights we're busted in the blinding lights, busted in the blinding lights of CLOSING TIME The whole damn place goes crazy twice and it's once for the devil and once for Christ but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights we're busted in the blinding lights, busted in the blinding lights of CLOSING TIME Oh the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots It's CLOSING TIME And it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops It's CLOSING TIME I swear it happened just like this: a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss It's CLOSING TIME The Gates of Love they budged an inch I can't say much has happened since But CLOSING TIME I loved you when our love was blessed I love you now there's nothing left But CLOSING TIME I miss you since the place got wrecked By the winds of change and the weeds of sex. 9. Dance Me To The End Of Love Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the end of love Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon Show me slowly what I only know the limits of Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the children who are asking to be born Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn Dance me to the end of love Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the end of love 10. Suzanne 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. And Jesus was a sailor When he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching From his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain Only drowning men could see him He said "All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them" But he himself was broken Long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him And you want to travel blind And you think maybe you'll trust him For he's touched your perfect body with his mind. Now Suzanne takes your hand And she leads you to the river She is wearing rags and feathers From Salvation Army counters And the sun pours down like honey On our lady of the harbour 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 And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that you can trust her For she's touched your perfect body with her mind. 11. Hallelujah Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this The fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her She tied you To a kitchen chair She broke your throne, and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well really, what's it to you? There's a blaze of light In every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah I did my best, it wasn't much I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you And even though It all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah 12. Never Any Good I was never any good at loving you I was never any good at coming through for you You're going to feel much better When you cut me loose forever I was never any good Never any good I was never any good at loving you I was dying when we met I bet my life on you But you called me and I folded like you knew I'd do You called my ace, my king, my bluff Okay, you win, enough's enough I was never any good Never any good I was never any good at loving you I was pretty good at taking out the garbage Pretty good at holding up the wall Dealing with the fire and the earthquake But that don't count That don't count That don't count for nothing much at all I was never any good at loving you I was just a tourist in your bed looking at the view But I can't forget where my lips have been Those holy hills, that deep ravine I was never any good Never any good I was never any good at loving you I was pretty good at taking out the garbage Pretty good at holding up the wall I'm sorry for my crimes against the moonlight I didn't think I didn't think I didn't think the moon would mind at all I was never any good at loving you At doing what a woman really wants a man to do You're going to feel much better When you cut me loose forever I was never any good Never any good I was never any good at loving you 13. The Great Event It's going to happen very soon. The great event which will end the horror. Which will end the sorrow. Next Tuesday, when the sun goes down, I will play the Moonlight Sonata backwards. This will reverse the effects of the world's mad plunge into suffering, for the last 200 million years. What a lovely night that would be. What a sigh of relief, as the senile robins become bright red again, and the retired nightingales, pick up their dusty tails, and assert the majesty of creation! |