Take This Longing

Album: New Skin For The Old Ceremony (1974)
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  • Many men have loved the bells
    You fastened to the rein
    And everyone who wanted you
    They found what they will always want again
    Your beauty lost to you yourself
    Just as it was lost to them

    Oh, take this longing from my tongue
    Whatever useless things these hands have done
    Let me see your beauty broken down
    Like you would do for one you love

    Your body like a searchlight
    My poverty revealed
    I would like to try your charity
    Until you cry, "now you must try my greed"
    And everything depends upon
    How near you sleep to me

    Just take this longing from my tongue
    All the lonely things my hands have done
    Let me see your beauty broken down
    Like you would do for one your love

    Hungry as an archway
    Through which the troops have passed
    I stand in ruins behind you
    With your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps
    I love to see you naked over there
    Especially from the back

    Oh, take this longing from my tongue
    All the useless things my hands have done
    Untie for me your hired blue gown
    Like you would do for one that you love

    You're faithful to the better man
    I'm afraid that he left
    So let me judge your love affair
    In this very room where I have sentenced mine to death
    I'll even wear these old laurel leaves
    That he's shaken from his head

    Just take this longing from my tongue
    All the useless things my hands have done
    Let me see your beauty broken down
    Like you would do for one you love
    Like you would do for one you love Writer/s: Leonard Cohen
    Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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