Interpret:

Leonard Cohen

Album:

Ten New Songs

By the rivers dark
I wandered on.
I lived my life
in Babylon.


And I did forget
My holy song:
And I had no strength
In Babylon.


By the rivers dark
Where I could not see
Who was waiting there
Who was hunting me.


And he cut my lip
And he cut my heart.
So I could not drink
From the river dark.


And he covered me,
And I saw within,
My lawless heart
And my wedding ring,


I did not know
And I could not see
Who was waiting there,
Who was hunting me


By the rivers dark
I panicked on.
I belonged at last
To Babylon.


Then he struck my heart
With a deadly force,
And he said, ‘This heart:
It is not yours.’


And he gave the wind
My wedding ring:
And he circled us
With everything.


By the rivers dark,
In a wounded dawn,
I live my life
In Babylon.


Though I take my song
From a withered limb,
Both song and tree,
They sing for him.


Be the truth unsaid
And the blessing gone,
If I forget
My Babylon.


I did not know
And I could not see
Who was waiting there.
Who was hunting me.


By the rivers dark,
Where it all goes on:
By the rivers dark
In Babylon.