Poets From Montreal

"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 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 that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows that the captain lied... And everybody knows that you're in trouble... Everybody knows it's coming apart. Take one last look...Before it blows. Everybody knows"

"If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to. And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you."

"Here I stand, I'm your man."

"My friends are gone and My hair is grey. I ache in the places where I used to play. And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on. I'm just paying my rent everyday In the Tower Of Song."

"You can say that I've grown bitter but of this you can be sure. The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And there's a mighty Judgement coming but I may be wrong…"

"I see you standing on the other side. I don't know how the river got so wide. I loved you, baby, way back when. And all the bridges are burning that We might have crossed and I feel so close to everything that we've lost. We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again.Now I bid You farewell, I don't when I'll be back. They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track. But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone. I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower Of Song"

"I've seen the future, brother: it is murder."

"Waiting for the miracle There's nothing left to do. I haven't been this happy since the end of World War II."

"If you're squeezed for information, that's when you've got to play it dumb: You just say you're out there waiting for the miracle to come."

"We're drinking and we're dancing but there's nothing really happening. The place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night."

"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

"Every heart to love will come But like a refugee."

"It's coming through a hole in the air From those nights in Tiananmen Square It's coming from the feel That it ain't exactly real Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there From the war against disorder From the sirens night and day From the fires of the homeless From the ashes of the gay Democracy is coming to the U.S.A."

"It's coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the U.S.A."

"I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight Getting lost in that hopeless little screen But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay, I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A."

"I smile when I'm angry, I cheat and I lie. I do what I have to do to get by. But I know what is wrong and I know what is right, and I'd die for the truth in my secret life."

"And here you are hurried, And here you are gone; And here is the love, That it's all built upon."

"Here is your cross, Your nails and your hill; And here is your love, That lists where it will"

"May everyone live, And may everyone die. Hello, my love, And my love, Goodbye."

"The light came through the window, Straight from the sun above, And so inside my little room There plunged the rays of Love.In streams of light I clearly saw The dust you seldom see, Out of which the Nameless makes A Name for one like me."

"All busy in the sunlight The flecks did float and dance, And I was tumbled up with them In formless circumstance."

"I'll try to say a little more: Love went on and on Until it reached an open door — Then Love Itself Love Itself was gone."

"You whisper, "You have loved enough, Now let me be the Lover.""

"I swept the marble chambers, But you sent me down below. You kept me from believing Until you let me know: That I am not the one who loves — It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, You forbid delivery."

"If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name Vilified, crucified, in the human frame A million candles burning for the help that never came You want it darkerHineni, hineni I'm ready, my Lord"

"They're lining up the prisoners And the guards are taking aim I struggled with some demons They were middle-class and tame I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim."

"Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple."

"I fought against the bottle but I had to do it drunk"

"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."

"And sometimes when the night is slow The wretched and the meek We gather up our hearts and go A Thousand Kisses Deep."

"The candles burned The moon went down The polished hill The milky town Transparent, weightless, luminous Uncovering the two of us On that fundamental ground Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound And half the perfect world is found."

"And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.""

"What if I had to Live here without you Oh, I don't really want to know Where you goin', Lenny Cohen?"

"This was a man where, within a Pop Song, there were some big ideas"

"He's got your young idealism, he's got You when You can't face the world. He's got You at all stages"

"He's of almost Biblical importance. I don't think there’s going to be another Leonard Cohen."

"You're a Leonard Cohen song"

"I tell you who I also think is wonderful is a chap called Leonard Cohen … do you know him? … He's remarkable. I mean, the orchestration is fantastic and the words, the lyrics and everything, he's a remarkable man, and has this incredibly sort of laid back gravelly voice, it's terrific stuff I think."

"In the Canadian film Hardcore Logo, a Canadian punk rocker suggests "Faster, Leonard Cohen! Die! Die!" as a possible band name. This also refers to the film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!."

"I finally broke into the prison I found my place in the chain Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows Leonard Cohen is one of the few songwriters who has words that you can just chew on for months and months and yet there’s still flavor left in there to taste. That third line is such a positive one, even though it sounds bleak at first. He saying that there is still hope even in the darkest situations, even in the terrible situations that have thrown yourself into, the times where you crawl into a hole and wait for suffering to be piled on top of you. Even in those moments, the clouds pull away and beams of light shine through. That’s the kind of music that I hope never stops being played, even after the writers of such songs are very very far away, or resting deep in the ground."

"Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld So I can sigh eternally"

"But I was caught, like a fleeting thought Stuck inside Leonard Cohen's mind"

"It is their desire to honor L. Cohen, songwriter, that has prompted a delegation of our brightest artists to climb, one by one, joss sticks smoldering, the steep and salty staircase in the Tower of Song. There is evidence that the honoree might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you’re wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person’s biochemical sky more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact, the poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic desire, let alone disclosing the hidden mystical essence of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the “illogical” line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and the bewildering assaults of culture."

"It is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has breathed life into these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher’s stone. … It is a penitent’s voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toast—spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women—and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word “naked” as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been."

"I don't want, no I really don't want To be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen I just want to be my Dad."

"And you kissed me shy as though I'd never been your lover"

"A nation comes to freedom in thousands of steps — some of them huge leaps, the others little. And the evening with Leonard Cohen more than twenty years ago was an evening of hope. Difficult as much to him as it was to us. Not necessarily political but intimate. And I learned to appreciate the power of intimacy. There are moments when nothing can get between you and the other person. And when this person is Leonard Cohen himself you feel blessed. And you feel free."

"No one ever listens to me. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record."