Lines that get you every time

[merton]

Hi Steven,

Looks like I'm suffering from 'cut 'n paste' fatigue!!. A great song from an album that is working its way through me - slowly but surely.

All the best,
Merton

[Liamberney]

'But climb on your tears and be silent, like the rose on its ladder of thorn'
Has this line really not been included yet? I may have missed it as I have sped through the thread. It hit me between the eyes the very first time I heard it and always listen for it. I live in hope that Leonard will include The Window in the 2012 tour (now we have a violin in the band )

[meglos2000]

To every heart love will come
But like a refugee

That line from Anthem gets me everytime.

In fact I put it on order of service for my wedding!

[david birkett]

Time for a sub-thread called 'Cohen lines on orders of service'? We had:

So come my friends, be not afraid
We are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made,
In love we disappear.

[Robin Orfe]

Everybody knows the boat is leaking,
Everybody knows that the captain lied.

[Robin Orfe]

We met when we were almost young
deep in the green lilac park.
You held on to me like I was a crucifix,
as we went kneeling through the dark.

It's so hard to pick just ONE line from ONE song. That's why I had to add this one too.

Robin

[beokii]

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.

[SeldomSeen]

I just found this site, but I've been a Leonard Cohen fan for almost 20 years and felt compelled to post. The line that gets me every time is from "Famous Blue Raincoat." I've been to the desert a few times, so the starkness and loneliness of this line is devastatingly beautiful.

"I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert,
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record."

[AlanM]

The Traitor
Ah, the dreamers rise against the men of action,
Oh, see the men of action falling back.

The Stranger Song
And while he talks his dreams to sleep
You notice there's a highway
That is curling just like smoke above his shoulder.

Hunter's Lullaby
Your father's gone a-hunting
Through the silver and the glass
Where only greed can enter
But spirit, spirit cannot pass

The Captain
"There is no decent place to stand
In a massacre;
But if a woman take your hand
Go and stand with her."

Lady Midnight
She said “Don’t try to use me or slyly refuse me
Just win me or lose me, it is this that the darkness is for.”

The Smokey Life
So set your restless heart at ease
Take a lesson from these Autumn leaves
They waste no time waiting for the snow

Etc. etc. etc. ...

[djregan]

First time poster long time reader

Love it that you can listen to Leonards music for so long and still discover pearls.

from Teachers

"Follow me the wise man said
but he walked behind."

[merton]

Hi,

from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.

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


All the best,
Merton

[Ultraviolet]

Some lines are "Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win" I love that! and "Ah remember me, I used to live for music"

[TineDoes]

'The sands of time were falling
from your fingers and your thumb'

Waiting for the Miracle.
(The whole song is beautiful, but these lines really bring the waiting home for me; the sands just seem to fall and fall and fall, there is just no way of holding on to time. If I could it would have been during this song in Dublin)

'The Autumn moved accross your skin,
Got something in my eye
A light......'

Recitation Thousand Kisses Deep.

[comehealing]

Great question but as others have intimated, almost impossible to answer.
A bit like asking a parent, if they have more than one child, who their favourite
is.

Could choose several stretching from the earliest to the present but will
proffer a couple from the last two albums.

The Faith (Dear Heather)
The sea, so deep and blind
the sun, the wild regret
the club, the wheel, the mind
O love aren't you tired yet?

Lullaby (Old Ideas)
Sleep baby sleep
there's a morning to come
the wind in the trees
they're talking in tongues

[Meltea]

My love for Leonard started when I first felt what I call the Roberta-Flack-effect ("killing me softly with his song, telling my whole life with his words") listening to the lyrics of The Stranger Song. "I know that kind of man. It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender". So true. So beautifully put. Such a touching resume.