Stranger Music Selected Poems and Songs

by COHEN, LEONARD

• ISBN13: 9780679755418
• ISBN10: 0679755411
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-11-01
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

For the first time in paperback--the selected work of the legendary singer, poet, and performer. Stranger Music presents a magnificent cross-section of Cohen's work--including 11 previously unpublished poems--and demonstrates definitively that Cohen is a writer of dazzling intelligence and a force that transcends genres.

Author Biography

Leonard Cohen’s artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies. He has published two novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, and eleven books of poetry, most recently Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, Book of Longing,and Leonard Cohen: Poems and Songs. He has to date released fourteen studio albums, the most recent of which, You Want It Darker, was released in 2016. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, and was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize in 2011. Mr. Cohen died in 2016.

Table of Contents

Poem	p. 3
Letter	p. 4
Lovers	p. 6
Prayer for Messiah	p. 7
When This American Woman	p. 8
These Heroics	p. 9
Warning	p. 10
The Fly	p. 11
As the Mist Leaves No Scar	p. 15
Beneath My Hands	p. 16
I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries	p. 18
I Long to Hold Some Lady	p. 19
Owning Everything	p. 20
Song	p. 21
For Anne	p. 22
You Have the Lovers	p. 23
Song for Abraham Klein	p. 25
Song to Make Me Still	p. 26
Summer Haiku	p. 27
My Lady Can Sleep	p. 28
Gift	p. 29
I Wonder How Many People in This City	p. 30
Travel	p. 31
I Have Two Bars of Soap	p. 32
The Cuckold's Song	p. 33
Morning Song	p. 35
The Flowers That I Left in the Ground	p. 36
A Kite Is a Victim	p. 38
There Are Some Men	p. 39
Isaiah	p. 40
What I'm Doing Here	p. 45
I Wanted to Be a Doctor	p. 46
The Drawer's Condition on November 28, 1961	p. 47
The Invisible Trouble	p. 48
Opium and Hitler	p. 49
It Uses Us!	p. 51
Heirloom	p. 52
All There Is to Know about Adolph Eichmann	p. 53
Sky	p. 54
Hitler	p. 55
The Failure of a Secular Life	p. 56
Wheels, Fireclouds	p. 57
The Music Crept by Us	p. 58
Hydra 1960	p. 59
Queen Victoria and Me	p. 60
I Had It for a Moment	p. 62
The Way Back	p. 64
On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken	p. 66
Style	p. 68
Disguises	p. 70
Cherry Orchards	p. 73
Streetcars	p. 74
Nothing I Can Lose	p. 75
Front Lawn	p. 76
The Big World	p. 77
The Lists	p. 78
Promise	p. 79
For E. J. P.	p. 80
One Night I Burned	p. 85
I See You on a Greek Mattress	p. 86
Snow Is Falling	p. 87
Fingerprints	p. 88
A Cross Didn't Fall on Me	p. 90
Suzanne	p. 95
Teachers	p. 97
Winter Lady	p. 99
So Long, Marianne	p. 100
One of Us Cannot Be Wrong	p. 102
Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye	p. 104
Master Song	p. 106
Sisters of Mercy	p. 109
The Stranger Song	p. 111
A Person Who Eats Meat	p. 115
Marita	p. 116
This Is for You	p. 117
The Reason I Write	p. 119
You Do Not Have to Love Me	p. 120
You Live Like a God	p. 121
Be with Me	p. 125
What Is a Saint	p. 126
A Great Feast in Quebec	p. 127
Magic Is Alive	p. 129
All Right, Edith	p. 131
Believe Me, Edith	p. 135
Story of Isaac	p. 139
Lady Midnight	p. 141
You Know Who I Am	p. 142
Seems So Long Ago, Nancy	p. 143
Bird on the Wire	p. 144
Joan of Arc	p. 147
Avalanche	p. 149
Diamonds in the Mine	p. 151
Famous Blue Raincoat	p. 153
Welcome to These Lines	p. 157
The Only Poem	p. 158
Portrait of a Girl	p. 159
I Perceived the Outline of Your Breasts	p. 160
The Escape	p. 161
I Am Dying	p. 162
1967	p. 163
Ugly in My Own Eyes	p. 164
There Are No Traitors	p. 165
I Left a Woman	p. 166
Invisible Tonight	p. 167
Love Is a Fire	p. 168
You Tore Your Shirt	p. 169
Threat	p. 170
Dark at Four O'Clock	p. 171
Far from the Soil	p. 172
My Room	p. 173
The Road to Larissa	p. 174
I Am Punished	p. 175
Aquarian Age	p. 175
The Killers	p. 176
Purest of Occasions	p. 177
You Went to Work	p. 178
Any System	p. 179
One of These Days	p. 180
I Try to Keep in Touch	p. 181
My Greed	p. 182
Your Eyes	p. 183
This Is War	p. 184
I'd Like to Read	p. 185
The Poems Don't Love Us Any More	p. 186
Stay	p. 187
Etiquette	p. 188
A Veil	p. 189
A Future Night	p. 190
Morocco	p. 191
Song for My Assassin	p. 192
The Wrong Man	p. 193
One	p. 193
This Is My Voice	p. 194
Chelsea Hotel	p. 197
Take This Longing	p. 199
Field Commander Cohen	p. 201
There Is a War	p. 202
Is This What You Wanted	p. 203
Why Don't You Try	p. 205
I Tried to Leave You	p. 206
Who by Fire?	p. 207
A Singer Must Die	p. 208
Memories	p. 213
Paper-Thin Hotel	p. 214
True Love Leaves No Traces	p. 216
I Left a Woman Waiting	p. 217
Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On	p. 218
I Knelt Beside a Stream	p. 221
The Cafe	p. 222
Commentary - The Cafe	p. 222
The Change	p. 223
Commentary - The Change	p. 223
Death to This Book	p. 224
Commentary - Death to This Book	p. 224
Another Room	p. 225
Commentary - Another Room	p. 226
Death of a Lady's Man	p. 227
My Wife and I	p. 230
Commentary - My Wife and I	p. 230
The News You Really Hate	p. 231
Commentary - The News You Really Hate	p. 231
I Decided	p. 232
The Beetle	p. 233
Commentary - The Beetle	p. 233
The Altar	p. 234
Commentary - The Altar	p. 234
This Marriage	p. 235
Commentary - This Marriage	p. 236
Commentary II - This Marriage	p. 236
The Photograph	p. 237
It's Probably Spring	p. 238
Commentary - It's Probably Spring	p. 239
Another Family	p. 240
The Asthmatic	p. 242
Commentary - The Asthmatic	p. 243
A Woman's Decision	p. 244
I Bury My Girlfriend	p. 245
A Different Drum	p. 246
A Working Man	p. 247
Commentary - A Working Man	p. 248
The Unclean Start	p. 249
Angelica	p. 251
The Next One	p. 252
A Marvellous Woman	p. 253
The Event	p. 254
You Have No Form	p. 255
The Dream	p. 256
I Like the Way You Opposed Me	p. 257
Beside My Son	p. 258
Commentary - Beside My Son	p. 258
She Has Given Me the Bullet	p. 259
Commentary - She Has Given Me the Bullet	p. 259
The Good Fight	p. 260
The Dove	p. 261
The Rose	p. 262
Not Going Back	p. 264
Montreal	p. 265
French and English	p. 266
O Wife Unmasked	p. 268
The Window	p. 269
Your Death	p. 270
Petitions	p. 272
The Rebellion	p. 273
The Price of This Book	p. 274
Roshi	p. 275
This Wretch	p. 277
Hurry to Your Dinner	p. 278
Commentary - Hurry to Your Dinner	p. 279
Slowly I Married Her	p. 280
The Transmission	p. 282
End of My Life in Art	p. 284
Roshi Again	p. 286
How to Speak Poetry	p. 287
Commentary - How to Speak Poetry	p. 290
The Politics of This Book	p. 291
You're Not Supposed to Be Here	p. 292
Final Examination	p. 294
Commentary - Final Examination	p. 294
Came So Far for Beauty	p. 297
The Window	p. 299
Our Lady of Solitude	p. 301
The Gypsy Wife	p. 302
The Traitor	p. 304
The Guests	p. 306
Ballad of the Absent Mare	p. 308
I Stopped to Listen	p. 313
When I Left the King	p. 314
I Heard My Soul Singing	p. 315
Sit Down, Master	p. 316
In the Eyes of Men	p. 317
Blessed Are You	p. 318
You Have Sweetened Your Word	p. 319
I Draw Aside the Curtain	p. 320
Friend, When You Speak	p. 321
My Teacher	p. 322
Israel	p. 323
You Who Pour Mercy into Hell	p. 325
When I Have Not Rage	p. 326
We Cry Out	p. 327
You Who Question Souls	p. 328
It Is All Around Me	p. 329
It Is to You I Turn	p. 330
Holy Is Your Name	p. 331
Not Knowing Where to Go	p. 332
All My Life	p. 333
I Lost My Way	p. 334
Dance Me to the End of Love	p. 337
Coming Back to You	p. 339
The Captain	p. 341
If It Be Your Will	p. 343
The Night Comes On	p. 345
Hallelujah	p. 347
First We Take Manhattan	p. 351
Take This Waltz	p. 353
Ain't No Cure for Love	p. 355
I'm Your Man	p. 357
I Can't Forget	p. 359
Everybody Knows	p. 361
The Tower of Song	p. 363
Democracy	p. 367
The Future	p. 370
Anthem	p. 373
Light as the Breeze	p. 375
Closing Time	p. 378
Waiting for the Miracle	p. 380
To a Fellow Student	p. 385
Fragment from a Journal	p. 386
When Even The	p. 388
Paris Models	p. 391
On Seeing Kabir's Poems on Her Dressing Table	p. 393
My Honour	p. 394
Peace	p. 395
The Embrace	p. 396
A Deep Happiness	p. 398
Every Pebble	p. 399
Days of Kindness	p. 401
Index of Titles	p. 402
Index of First Lines	p. 409
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.