Leonard Cohen – Seems So Long Ago, Nancy Lyrics

Nancy (1943 — 1965) was an acquaintance of Leonard Cohen from when he grew up in Montreal. She was suffering from bipolar depression, and committed suicide at the age of 21, not long before this song was written.

In 1988, Cohen said on a Radio Interview broadcast on RTE Ireland:

I think that the world throws up certain kinds of figures. Sometime in abundance, sometimes very rarely, and that some of these figures act as archetypes or prototypes for another generation which will manifest these characteristics a lot more easily, maybe a lot more gracefully, but not a lot more heroically. Another twenty years later she would have been just like you know, the hippest girl on the block. But twenty years before she was – there was no reference to her, so in a certain way she was doomed.

In this song, Leonard expresses regret about being unable (or unwilling) to truly understand Nancy.

Seems So Long Ago, Nancy Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

[Verse 1]
It seems so long ago
Nancy was alone
Looking at the Late Late show
Through a semi-precious stone
In the House of Honesty
Her father was on trial
In the House of Mystery
There was no one at all
There was no one at all
[Verse 2]
It seems so long ago
None of us were strong
Nancy wore green stockings
And she slept with everyone
She never said she’d wait for us
Although she was alone
I think she fell in love for us
In 1961
In 1961

[Verse 3]
It seems so long ago
Nancy was alone
A forty-five beside her head
An open telephone
We told her she was beautiful
We told her she was free
But none of us would meet her in
The House of Mystery
The House of Mystery

[Verse 4]
And now you look around you
See her everywhere
Many use her body
Many comb her hair
And In the hollow of the night
When you are cold and numb
You hear her talking freely then
She’s happy that you’ve come
She’s happy that you’ve come