So Long, Marianne by Leonard Cohen

Marianne

“Oh, Marianne was terrific, and of course one never, at that age one is mostly interested in beauty. And she had beauty in abundance, I think that’s mostly what one saw, what anyone would have seen with Marianne, this glorious beauty, and then she was an old-fashioned girl, and I kind of come from an old-fashioned background myself, so, the things that I took for granted with Marianne, and she perhaps took with me, a certain kind of courtesy and behaviour and ritual and order, which became very scarce as I got older, I didn’t find it with such abundance in other women. But Marianne had some wonderful family qualities, and the home that she made was very very beautiful, very old fashioned. I don’t know how things go now with the young, but that house was very orderly and there was always a gardenia on my desk where I’d work, you know. There was such a sense of order and generosity, that she had, that she still has.”

Leonard Cohen on Marianne Ihlen

So Long, Marianne

Come over to the window, my little darling
I'd like to try to read your palm
I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy
Before I let you take me home

Now so long, Marianne
It's time that we began to laugh
And cry and cry and laugh about it all again

Well, you know that I love to live with you
But you make me forget so very much
I forget to pray for the angels
And then the angels forget to pray for us

We met when we were almost young
Deep in the green lilac park
You held on to me like I was a crucifix
As we went kneeling through the dark

Your letters, they all say that you're beside me now
Then why do I feel alone?
I'm standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
Is fastening my ankle to a stone

For now I need your hidden love
I'm cold as a new razorblade
You left when I told you I was curious
I never said that I was brave

Oh, you are really such a pretty one
I see you've gone and changed your name again
And just when I climbed this whole mountainside
To wash my eyelids in the rain

Now so long, Marianne
It's time that we began to laugh
And cry and cry and laugh about it all again

Leonard Cohen



Marianne