Leonard Cohen, I Left a Woman Waiting...

        I left a woman waiting
        I met her sometime later
        She said I see your eyes are dead
        What happened to you, lover

        And since she spoke the truth to me
        I thought I'd answer truthfully
        I said what happened to my eyes
        happened to your beauty
        happened to your beauty

        What happened to your beauty
        Happened to me.



from "Love Calls You By Your Name":
  Shouldering your loneliness
  Like a gun you will not learn to aim
  You stumble into this movie house
  Then you climb, you climb into the frame



Leonard Cohen, "Democracy" [excerpt]

    It's coming through a hole in the air,
    from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
    ...
    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 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.

    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.



Leonard Cohen, "Closing Time":

    We're drinking and we're dancing
    And the band is really happening
    And the Johnny Walker wisdom's running high.
    My very close companion
    Is an angel of compassion
    She's rubbing half the world against her thigh
    Every drinker every dancer
    lifts a smiling face to thank her
    and the fiddler fiddles something so sublime --
    the women tear their blouses off,
    the men they dance on the polka dots;
    it's partner found and partner lost
    there'll be hell to pay when the music stops,
    at closing time
    
    [...]

    We're drinking and we're dancing
    But there's nothing really happening
    And the place is dead as heaven on a saturday night
    My very close companion
    Gets me fumbling gets me laughing
    She's a hundred yeah but she's wearing something tight
    I lift my drink to the Awful Truth
    Which you can't reveal to the ears of youth
    Except to say it isn't worth a dime;
    The whole damn place goes crazy twice
    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 ...
    of closing time.