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EVERYBODY KNOWS
Leonard Cohen


Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

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

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

THE FUTURE
by: Leonard Cohen


Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every other living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant.

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I was the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's RIDING crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide ...

There'll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and a white man dancing
You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'.

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide ...

When they said REPENT REPENT ..

You can argue about the instrumentation all you like, but you can't argue with the power of those lyrics and the power of the rumoured throat-cancer-weathered vocals. (I've heard the throat cancer thing for at least 15 years but I can't really find anything about it on the internet.)

concerned wrote:You can argue about the instrumentation all you like, but you can't argue with the power of those lyrics and the power of the rumoured throat-cancer-weathered vocals. (I've heard the throat cancer thing for at least 15 years but I can't really find anything about it on the internet.)

I heard him live last month here in Zagreb, his voice is incredible, like mummified, every beat, joke he tell.....like 30 year ago.

Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

That I sing to my crew before we start sailing:

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

;)

Malden wrote:

concerned wrote:You can argue about the instrumentation all you like, but you can't argue with the power of those lyrics and the power of the rumoured throat-cancer-weathered vocals. (I've heard the throat cancer thing for at least 15 years but I can't really find anything about it on the internet.)

I heard him live last month here in Zagreb, his voice is incredible, like mummified, every beat, joke he tell.....like 30 year ago.

I wish I could see him. When he played here in Canada a few years ago I think the cheapest tickets we're like $175 or something, and I was flat broke.

I paid (well actually my father did, we went together) $100 to see DEVO but we got to meet them afterwards at an awkward meet and greet type of thing, so I think it was maybe worth it. And they played their first and third albums note for note, just like 32 and 30 years ago, respectively.

Big Leonard Cohen fan here too. Anybody here familiar with Morphine? Three-piece band out of Boston with definite Cohen influences. Tragically, the singer died onstage in Italy in 1999.

Just an interesting side note, I was lucky enough to work on a few posthumous Jeff Buckley DVDs before I was forced into "retirement". His mom is very sweet, and started quietly weeping the first time she viewed one of the DVDs in our studio (the DVD included an intimate live performance taped at a small club in New York)…

I have some morphine songs around. They were good if a bit of a one trick pony.

I will vote Buckley's version of hallelujah the best, if only for the sigh he gives at the start. The main strike against it is that popular culture has become increasingly aware of the song and used it in multiple movies unworthy of the song's greatness.

Well, I got on a Leonard Cohen kick this week and found this clip while searching for the very best video version of Hallelujah. It's on his own web site, recorded in London during his 2009 tour with some fabulous backup people who actually added a lot to the performance. Enjoy.

http://www.leonardcohen.com/us/video/hallelujah

Plus, here's a great interview with his comments about the song and the plethora of performances of it at the end (about 33 minutes into a 42 minute interview).


P.S. He has a new album coming out on January 31st - with a preview song on the home page of his site.