10 Greatest Leonard Cohen Lyrics (Part 2)

Contiuned from last post


2) "I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often."- Chelsea Hotel #2


The songs about him meeting Janis Joplin in a hotel in New York in the 60's. And the line "you got away, didn't you babe?" is more poignant knowing it's about her. She's cremated now, her ashes thrown to the pacific ocean. And Leonard stops, his head down, remembering someone he knew for just a moment. And then buttoning his coat he moves on slowly; as the ashes swirl all around him.



3) "Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah"- Hallelujah

The most famous version of this is by Jeff Buckley, another fallen robin. He drowned in a channel of the Mississippi river in 1997 at the age of 30. It's a beautiful cover of a song by a poet and it highlights the fact that Leonard Cohen's songs have more life within them then is sometimes readily apparent from his original recorded versions. There's actually more Leonard Cohen covers that are better than the originals then any other great singer/songwriter I can think of. (With the possible exception of Kris Kristofferson). And "Hallelujah" might be the best Leonard Cohen cover ever. Here's what it's like to find beauty in someone else's work. You can write a beautiful melody and write beautiful words to match it; and sometimes it takes what's close to genius to hear how beautiful they really are.




Continued next post