Leonard Cohen

Wasn’t hard to love you
Didn’t have to try
Held you for a little while
My oh, my oh, my

Los Angeles // Sept 2016
📸 Graeme Mitchell for The New Yorker

12 hours ago | [YT] | 1,335

Leonard Cohen

Those were the reasons and that was New York
We were running for the money and the flesh
And that was called love for the workers in song
Probably still is for those of them left

4 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 2,008

Leonard Cohen

There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

1 week ago | [YT] | 3,661

Leonard Cohen

Sad songs never looked so sharp.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,151

Leonard Cohen

… I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm
Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new
In city and in forest they smiled like me and you
But now it’s come to distances and both of us must try
Your eyes are soft with sorrow
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye

📸 Ralph Gibson
1973 // Montréal

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,212

Leonard Cohen

And all go stumbling through that house
In lonely secrecy
Saying “do reveal yourself”
Or “why has thou forsaken me?”

And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you, oh
I need you now

All at once the torches flare
The inner door flies open
One by one they enter there
In every style of passion

And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you, oh
I need you now

And here they take their sweet repast
While house and grounds dissolve
And one by one the guests are cast beyond the garden wall

1968 // Nashville
Photo by Tony Vaccaro

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,834

Leonard Cohen

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

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,774

Leonard Cohen

Ah the man she wanted all her life was hanging by a thread

“I never even knew how much I wanted you,“ she said.

His muscles they were numbered and his style was obsolete.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,272

Leonard Cohen

I have changed my name so often
I've lost my wife and children
But I have many friends
And some of them are with me
An old woman gave us shelter
Kept us hidden in the garret
Then the soldiers came
She died without a whisper

1 month ago | [YT] | 2,146

Leonard Cohen

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...

1 month ago | [YT] | 1,815