Stories Of The Street
By: Leonard Cohen

Original Performance: Leonard Cohen
Written by: Leonard Cohen

Versions:
  1. Stories Of The Street (5:06)
    Available on Songs Of Leonard Cohen.
    Credits
    Bram Inscore: Bass
    Andrew Van Wyngarden: Drums
    Beck Hansen: Guitar (Acoustic), Vocals
    Devendra Banhart: Guitar (Electric), Vocals (Background)
    Andrew Stockdale: Toy Piano
 
Lyrics:
Stories Of The Street [Version (a)]:

The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh
The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas
And I lean from my windowsill in this old hotel I chose
Yes, one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose

I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come
The cities, they are broke in half and the middlemen are gone
But let me ask you one more time, oh children of the dusk
All these hunters who are shrieking now, oh do they speak for us?

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 into your suffering, your pleasures on the seal

The age of lust is giving birth and both the parents ask
The nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass
And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite
And one hand filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night

Oh come with me, my little one, we will find that farm
And grow us green grass and apples there
And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am
Oh take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the 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
 
The Song:

"Stories Of The Street" can originally be found on Leonard Cohen's debut record Songs Of Leonard Cohen. The album was the second project by Beck's Record Club, where he and some friends would get together and record a cover of an entire album in one day. The Leonard Cohen project was done by Beck, Devendra Banhart, MGMT and some of Beck's band.

Beck struggles with the lyrics a little, but the jazzy groove is excellent. It's like a cross of jazz with country. With a bit more practice, I think this would be killer. Ah, Record Club, and your raggedy unrehearsed ways!

 
Notes: