leonardcohenforum.com

Old time Leonard Cohen fans please excuse my enthusiasm and I know I may be repeating something that has already been discussed but here are some of the lyrics that I have found very funny. My introduction to Leonard Cohen was via "The Future" and I must say that I though "here's a guy with a great sense of humour". I'm still discovering his other works so here are just a few that I love.

From The Future

- The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubblegum
- She's a hundred but she's wearing something tight
- Democracy is coming to the USA

From I'm Your Man (I bought it last weekend)

- They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom for trying to change the system from within (he must have worked where I work)
- The monkey and the plywood violin
- I can't forget but I don't remember what
- I ache in the places where I used to play

These lyrics just tickle me

Regards
Jonery

Re: The Songs of Leonard Cohen -

Stories Of The Street

The age of lust is giving birth and both the parents ask

the nurse to tell them fairytales on both sides of the glass

opendoor

In an interview, LC once said, "There's a joke in almost every song (and poem?)"

Our task as listener is to fine them ....

Also am very late arrival at the feast of Cohen and have caught up on the albums over the past couple of years. The whole of "One of us Cannot be Wrong" is drily hilarous, and is nicely rounded off by the hysterical yodelling at the end which also
suggests the narrator has crossed the border between passion and psychotic obsession.

As have we all, at some time?

That the humour of Cohen is unrealised by many is one of the world's most baffling enigmas.


David

He's a very witty man.

Some that spontaneously spring to my mind:

"I fought against the bottle, but I had to do it drunk"

"Baby let's get married, we've been alone too long.
Let's be alone together, let's see if we're that strong"

Lines that always make me smile:

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that youve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows youve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Field Commander Cohen, he was our most important spy.
Wounded in the line of duty,
parachuting acid into diplomatic cocktail parties,
urging Fidel Castro to abandon fields and castles.

From memory...

"I was never any good at loving you
I was just a tourist in your bed looking at the view".

Always like dthis one as well....

'Everybody knows that youve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two'

You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.

"she mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache"

"everybody got this broken feeling, like their farther or their dog just died"

"I've looked behind all of the faces
That smile you down to you knees
And the lips that say, Come on, taste us
And when you try to they make you say Please"



"She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah "

"Ah but a man never got a woman back
Not by begging on his knees "

"So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all"

"I know it must have hurt you,
it must have hurt your pride
to have to stand beneath my window
with your bugle and your drum,
and me I'm up there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come."

" and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"

"and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night "




"

"She said she was leaving early but I met her coming back."

If you want a Jewish doctor
I'll wear my leather mask for you

Oh won't you be naked for me,
Oh won't you be naked for me

….And this is the one that set the hook for me and LC when I was 15:

And Bethlehem inflamed us both
Like the shy one at some orgy

Oh yeah, and of course:

Will you spank her with a mechanical Corset?

Mark J, I apologise profusely for being a pedantic Leonard Cohen nut (yes someone should shoot me and put me out of my misery) but do you mean?

And if you want a (Jewish) doctor (the 'Jewish' being sung in the live version)
I'll examine every inch of you

and

So won't you let me see
I said "won't you let me see"
I said "won't you let me see
Your naked body?"

which must be sung along to very very loudly whenever it is played.

I will now go back to reading my little bible.

Forget the naked bit, I have 'Live Songs' only on vinyl, don't get to listen to it much, forgot.

"We swore to each other then our love would surely last
You went right on loving and I went on a fast
Now I am too thin and your love is too vast"