This song has all the disjunctures and ambiguities of a great poem:
I always assumed that Neil Diamond had written the lyrics for the song, but Scarlet Letter tells me it is Leonard Cohen:
Suzanne takes you down
to her place by the river.
And you can hear the boats go by,
you can spend the night forever.
And you know the girl’s half crazy,
and that’s why you want to be there.
And she feeds you tea and oranges
that come all the way from China.
And just when you want to tell her
that you have no love to give her,
she gets you on her wavelength,
and lets the river answer
that you’ve always been her lover.And Jesus was a sailor
when he walked upon the water.
And he spent the long time watching
from the lonely wooden tower.
And when he knew for certain
only he, drowning men, could see him,
he said, “All men are sailors, then,
until the sea shall free them.”
But he himself was broken,
long before the sky would open.
Forsaken, almost human,
he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.And you want to travel with him.
Ah, you want to travel blind.
And you think that you may trust him,
for he’s touched your perfect body
with his mind.Suzanne takes you down
to her place by the river.
And you can hear the boats that go by,
you can spend the night forever.
And the sun pours down like honey
on Our Lady of the Harbour.
And she shows you where to look
amid the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed;
there are children in the morning.
They are leaning out for love,
and they will lean that way forever
while Suzanne holds her mirror.
