Standard (EADGBE)

1: The stories of the street are mine,

The Spanish voices laugh...

The cadillacs go creeping down

Through the night and the poison gas

And I lean from my window-sill

In this old hotel I chose

With one hand on my suicide

And one hand on a rose... hmmm

2: I know you've heard it's over now

And war must surely come

The cities they are broke in half

And the middle-men are gone...

But let me ask you one more time

Oh Children of the Dust...

These hundreds who are shrieking now,

Oh do they speak for us? Hmmm...

3: And where do all these highways go

Now that we are free?

Why are the armies marching still

That were coming home to me?

Oh lady, with your legs so fine,

Oh stranger at your wheel...

You are locked inside your suffering

And your pleasures are the seal... Hmmm...

4: The Age of Lust is giving birth

And both the parents ask

The nurse to tell them fairytales

On both sides of the glass...

And now the infant with its cord

Is hauled in like a kite...

With one eye filled with blueprints

And one eye filled with night... Hmmm...

5: Oh come with me my little one

And we will find that farm

And grow us grass and apples there

And keep all the animals warm...

And if by chance I wake at night

And I ask you who I am

Oh then take me to the slaughter-house

I will wait there with the lamb... Hmmm...

6: With one hand on a hexagram

And one hand on a girl

I balance on a wishing-well

That all men call the world...

We are so small between the stars;

So large against the sky...

And lost among the subway crowds

I try to catch your eye... Hmmm...

This has been one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs for many years.

I saw a version was posted on this site already, but it was in Em...

this version, which I believe is perhaps the original key, is in Am.

I haven't tried the Em version yet, but I'm betting this version

sounds better... Let me know if I'm right!

If the chords are not properly lined up, it's because the typeface

is transcribed when I submitted it; try changing the typeface to

Arial 18 for the title, and Arial 10 for the rest of the song...