Lyrics

Leonard Cohen – The Stranger Song Lyrics

Updated

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

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Loosely based on the 1955 film The Man with the Golden Arm, The Stranger Song explores the problem of commitment between a man and a woman using the analogy of a card game and trains.

It was first performed by The Stormy Clovers in 1966 and first recorded by Judy Collins in the same year. Cohen talks about it introducing the song in Chicago, 1976:

About ten years ago I came to NYC with some songs. I have been living on a Greek island for about 8 years at the time. And it was kind of hard to get anybody to listen to them. You know they’ve kind of said “Just stand up Kid and turn around, you’re a little old for this aren’t you”. There was one person in NYC that listened to the songs and that was Judy Collins. And she recorded them and I think anything that happened to me subsequently was because of the interest she took in the songs when she first read them. Around that time I was living in the Penn Terminal Hotel on 34th Street, gruesome establishment as the name indicates. And I wrote this song at that time.

The Stranger Song Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

[Verse 1]
It’s true that all the men you knew were dealers
Who said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter
I know that kind of man, it’s hard to hold the hand of anyone
Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender
Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender

[Verse 2]
And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind
You find he did not leave you very much, not even laughter
Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild
He’ll never need to deal another
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
[Verse 3]
And then leaning on your window sill, he’ll say one day you caused his will
To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter
And then taking from his wallet an old schedule of trains, he’ll say
“I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger”

[Verse 4]
But now another stranger seems to want you to ignore his dreams
As though they were the burden of some other
O you’ve seen that man before, his golden arm dispatching cards
But now it’s rusted from the elbow to the finger
And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter
Yes, he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter

[Verse 5]
Ah you hate to watch another tired man lay down his hand
Like he was giving up the holy game of poker
And while he talks his dreams to sleep, you notice there’s a highway
That is curling up like smoke above his shoulder
It’s curling just like smoke above his shoulder

[Verse 6]
You tell him to come in, sit down, but something makes you turn around
The door is open, you can’t close your shelter
You try the handle of the road, it opens do not be afraid
It’s you my love, you who are the stranger
It is you my love, you who are the stranger

[Verse 7]
“Well, I’ve been waiting, I was sure we’d meet between the trains we’re waitin’ for
I think it’s time to board another
Please understand, I never had a secret chart
To get me to the heart of this or any other matter”
When he talks like this you don’t know what he’s after
When he speaks like this you don’t know what he’s after

[Verse 8]
“Let’s meet tomorrow, if you choose, upon the shore, beneath the bridge
That they are building on some endless river”
Then he leaves the platform for the sleeping car that’s warm
You realize, he’s only advertising one more shelter
And it comes to you, he never was a stranger
And you say, “Ok, the bridge or someplace later”

[Verse 3]
And leaning on your window sill, he’ll say one day you caused his will
To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter
And then taking from his wallet an old schedule of trains, he’ll say
“I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger”