Leonard Cohen

i love the covers i have of this man but i dont own any of his albums or his orginal songs... any recomendations on albums and songs

this, his first and, arguably, best. includes "suzanne"

does he have a band or is it him and a piano... seriously i've never heard him before only covers but i will google this album x

I think it's him and a guitar with various back up players. Maybe a piano too. I would go with either "Songs Of", "Songs Of Love And Hate" or "The Best Of". I think he's a monk now.

no, he left the monastery in 1999 and has release 2 great albums since then, 10 new songs and dear heather.

Stranded on scenario essential

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

that song makes me cry

oh and closing time and democracy are great songs too

Many men have loved the bells
you fastened to the rein,
and everyone who wanted you
they found what they will always want again.
Your beauty lost to you yourself
just as it was lost to them.
Oh take this longing from my tongue,
whatever useless things these hands have done.
Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one you love.

Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, "Now you must try my greed."
And everything depends upon
how near you sleep to me

Just take this longing from my tongue
all the lonely things my hands have done.
Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one your love.

Hungry as an archway
through which the troops have passed,
I stand in ruins behind you,
with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps.
I love to see you naked over there
especially from the back.

Oh take this longing from my tongue,
all the useless things my hands have done,
untie for me your hired blue gown,
like you would do for one that you love.

You're faithful to the better man,
I'm afraid that he left.
So let me judge your love affair
in this very room where I have sentenced
mine to death.
I'll even wear these old laurel leaves
that he's shaken from his head.

Just take this longing from my tongue,
all the useless things my hands have done,
let me see your beauty broken down,
like you would do for one you love.

Like you would do for one you love.

Definitely try Cohen Live. This version of Sisters of Mercy is not to be missed. (Also the versions of Bird on a Wire. And Everybody Knows. And Dance Me to the End Of Love)

Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, "Now you must try my greed."
And everything depends upon
how near you sleep to me

I can never go too long without hearing this...

And then leaning on your window sill
he'll say one day you caused his will
to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter
And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger.


And check out McCabe and Mrs. Miller, directed by Robert Altman. It brilliantly uses his music as the soundtrack.


[Edited on Mar 20, 2006 by FritzKD]

sincerely yours, L. Cohen

What a great song.
What awful synthesizers.

In fact, musically, the whole of I'm Your Man is just so dated and terrible. He should've gotten Tom Waits or Carole King and her band or anyone but the person who turned him on to synthesizers.

[Edited on Mar 21, 2006 by Clov]

"Who By Fire?"

Coil's cover of this introduced me to Mr. Cohen's music.

He is a wonderful songwriter.

Surprised no one here mentioned that the Sisters of Mercy's band name came from one of his (amazing) songs.

That's trivia for ya.

He is a wonderful songwriter.

Surprised no one here mentioned that the Sisters of Mercy's band name came from one of his (amazing) songs.

That's trivia for ya.

Uh oh, the Jazz Police are talking to my niece....

I remember when I first heard leonard cohen... he was used in the movie 'Pump up the volume'. I loved the song they played in there so I bought the soundtrack and all they had was a version of his song by concrete blondes which sucked...

so I put him on my christmas list and my friend bought a disc that was on sale and she claims she didn't look at it but it is called 'death of a ladies man' which included the song 'don't go home with your hard-on'


the song still makes me giggle.

Around year eleven, a whole bunch of my mates and I all inexplicably discovered this album independent of each other. It really is incredible. It's all we all listened to for a month or two.

thank you everyone for recommendations, i am nw ordering his first album

Ive only ever heard "Everybody Knows" which is a great song.

i'm listening to:



right now.

thanks for reminding me....