True Love Leaves No Traces

As the mist leaves no scar

On the dark green hill

So my body leaves no scar

On you and never will

Through windows in the dark

The children come, the children go

Like arrows with no target

Like shackles made of snow

True love leaves no traces

If you and I are one

It’s lost in our embraces

Like stars against the sun

As a falling leaf may rest

A moment on the air

So your head upon my breast

So my hand upon your hair

And many nights endure

Without a moon or star

So we will endure

When one is gone and far

True love leaves no traces

If you and I are one

It’s lost in our embraces

Like stars against the sun

Iodine

I needed you, I knew I was in danger

of losing what I used to think was mine

You let me love you till I was a failure,

You let me love you till I was a failure –

Your beauty on my bruise like iodine

I asked you if a man could be forgiven

And though I failed at love, was this a crime?

You said, Don’t worry, don’t worry, darling

You said, Don’t worry, don’t you worry, darling

There are many ways a man can serve his time

You covered up that place I could not master

It wasn’t dark enough to shut my eyes

So I was with you, O sweet compassion

Yes I was with you, O sweet compassion

Compassion with the sting of iodine

Your saintly kisses reeked of iodine

Your fragrance with a fume of iodine

And pity in the room like iodine

Your sister fingers burned like iodine

And all my wanton lust was iodine

My masquerade of trust was iodine

And everywhere the flare of iodine

Paper-Thin Hotel

The walls of this hotel are paper-thin

Last night I heard you

making love to him

The struggle mouth to mouth

and limb to limb

The grunt of unity when he came in

I stood there with my ear

against the wall

I was not seized by jealousy at all

In fact a burden lifted from my soul

I learned that love

was out of my control

A heavy burden lifted from my soul

I heard that love

was out of my control

I listened to your kisses at the door

I never heard the world

so clear before

You ran your bath and you began to sing

I felt so good I couldn’t feel a thing

I stood there with my ear

against the wall

I was not seized by jealousy at all

In fact a burden lifted from my soul

I learned that love

was out of my control

A heavy burden lifted from my soul

I heard that love

was out of my control

And I can’t wait to tell you to your face

And I can’t wait for you to take my place

You are The Naked Angel

In My Heart

You are The Woman

With Her Legs Apart

It’s written on the walls of this hotel

You go to heaven once

you’ve been to hell

A heavy burden lifted from my soul

I heard that love

was out of my control

Memories

Frankie Lane, he was singing “Jezebel”

I pinned an Iron Cross to my lapel

I walked up to the tallest

and the blondest girl

I said, “Look, you don’t know me now

but very soon you will;

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?”

“Just dance me

to the dark side of the gym

Chances are,

I’ll let you do most anything

I know you’re hungry

I can hear it in your voice

and there are many parts of me to touch

you have your choice.

Ah but no, you cannot see,”

She said, “No you cannot see,”

She said “No you cannot see my naked body.”

So we’re dancing close,

the band is playing “Stardust”

Balloons and paper streamers

floating down on us

She says, “You’ve got a minute left

to fall in love.”

In solemn moments such as this

I have put my trust

and all my faith to see,

I said, all my faith to see,

I said, all my faith to see her naked body.

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?

What happened to you, my lover?

What happened to you, lover?

What happened to you?

And since she spoke the truth to me

I tried to answer truthfully:

Whatever happened to my eyes

Happened to your beauty

Happened to your beauty

What happened to your beauty

Happened to me.

We took ourselves to someone’s bed
And there we fell together
Quick as dogs and truly dead were we
And free as running water
Free as running water
Free as running water
Free as you and me
The way it’s got to be
The way it’s got to be, lover

Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On

I was born in a beauty salon

My father was a dresser of hair

My mother was a girl you could call on

When you called she was always there

When you called she was always there

When you called she was always there

When you called she was always there

When you called she was always there

Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on
It will only drive you insane
You can’t shake it (or break it)
with your Motown
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain

I’ve looked behind all of these faces
That smile you down to your knees
And the lips that say, come on, taste us
And when you try to, they make you say Please

When you try to, they make you say Please

When you try to, they make you say Please

When you try to, they make you say Please

When you try to, they make you say Please

Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on
It will only drive you insane
You can’t shake it (or break it)
with your Motown
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain

Here comes your bride with her veil on

Approach her, you wretch, if you dare

Approach her, you ape, with your tail on

Once you have her she’ll always be there

Once you have her she’ll always be there

Once you have her she’ll always be there

Once you have her she’ll always be there

Once you have her she’ll always be there

Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on
It will only drive you insane
You can’t shake it (or break it)
with your Motown
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain

So I work in that same beauty salon

I’m chained to the old masquerade

The lipstick, the shadow, the silicone

I follow my father’s trade

I follow my father’s trade

Yes I follow my father’s trade

Yes I follow my father’s trade

Yes I follow my father’s trade

Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on
It will only drive you insane
You can’t shake it (or break it)
with your Motown
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain
You can’t melt it down in the rain

Fingerprints

I touched you once too often

Now I don’t know who I am

My fingerprints were missing

When I wiped away the jam

Yes I called my fingerprints all night

But they don’t seem to care

The last time that I saw them
They were leafing through your hair

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

Yeah I thought I’d leave this morning

So I emptied out your drawer

A hundred thousand fingerprints

They floated to the floor

You know you hardly stopped to pick them up

You don’t care what you lose

Ah you don’t even seem to know

Whose fingerprints are whose

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

And now you want to marry me

You want to take me down the aisle

You want to throw confetti fingerprints

You know that’s not my style

O sure I’d like to marry you

But I can’t face the dawn

With any girl who knew me

When my fingerprints were on

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

Fingerprints, oh fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

Death Of A Ladies’ Man

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.

“O baby, I have come too late.”

She knelt beside his feet.

“I’ll never see a face like yours

in years of men to come,

I’ll never see such arms again

in wrestling or in love.”

And all his virtues burning

in the smoky holocaust,

she took unto herself

most everything her lover lost.

Now the master of this landscape

he was standing at the view

with a sparrow of St. Francis

that he was preaching to.

She beckoned to the sentry

of his high religious mood.

She said, “I’ll make a place between my legs,

I’ll show you solitude.”

He offered her an orgy

in a many-mirrored room;

he promised her protection

for the issue of her womb.

She moved her body hard

against a sharpened metal spoon,

she stopped the bloody rituals

of passage to the moon.

She took his much-admired

oriental frame of mind,

and the heart-of-darkness alibi

his money hides behind.

She took his blonde madonna

and his monastery wine.

“This mental space is occupied

and everything is mine.”

He tried to make a final stand

beside the railway track.

She said, “The art of longing’s over

and it’s never coming back.”

She took his tavern parliament,

his cap, his cocky dance;

she mocked his female fashions

and his working-class moustache.

The last time that I saw him

he was trying hard to get

a woman’s education

but he’s not a woman yet.

And the last time that I saw her

she was living with some boy

who gives her soul an empty room

and gives her body joy.

So the great affair is over

but whoever would have guessed

it would leave us all so vacant

and so deeply unimpressed.

It’s like our visit to the moon

or to that other star:

I guess you go for nothing

if you really want to go that far.

It’s like our visit to the moon

or to that other star:

I guess you go for nothing

if you really want to go that far.

It’s like our visit to the moon

or to that other star:

I guess you go for nothing

if you really want to go that far.

(c) 1977 Leonard Cohen and Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada Company

Courtesy of Menart, an exclusive Sony dealer for Croatia
Reprinted here with written permission