Leonard Cohen – Chelsea Hotel No. 2 Lyrics

This song references a sexual encounter Leonard Cohen had with singer Janis Joplin in New York’s Chelsea Hotel.

In his own words:

I wrote this for an American singer who died a while ago. She used to stay at the Chelsea, too. I began it at a bar in a Polynesian restaurant in Miami in 1971 and finished it in Asmara, Ethiopia just before the throne was overturned. Ron Cornelius helped me with a chord change in an earlier version.

Long after disclosing the song’s backstory, Cohen said he regretted making the link between himself and Joplin public, but he has never denied or recanted the story.

It’s called #2 because there is an earlier, significantly longer, version of this song which Leonard doesn’t sing often.

Chelsea Hotel No. 2 Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were talking so brave and so sweet
Givin’ me head on the unmade bed
While the limousines wait in the street

Those were the reasons, that was New York
We were runnin’ for the money and the flesh
And that was called love for the workers in song
Probably still is for those of them left

Yeah, but you got away, didn’t you babe?
You just turned your back on the crowd
When you got away, I never once heard you say
I need you
I don’t need you
I need you
I don’t need you
And all of that jivin’ around

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were famous, your heart was a legend
You told me again, you preferred handsome men
But for me you would make an exception

And clenching your fist for the ones like us
Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
You fixed yourself, you said “Well nevermind
We are ugly but we have the music”

And then you got away didn’t you babe?
You just turned your back on the crowd
When you got away I never once heard you say

I need you
I don’t need you
I need you
I don’t need you
And all of that jivin’ around

I don’t mean to suggest
That I loved you the best
I can’t keep track of each fallen robin
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
That’s all, I don’t think of you that often