Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye
Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye - context Summary
Published in 1967
Composed and published in 1967, this song-poem appears on Leonard Cohen's debut collection Songs of Leonard Cohen. It offers an intimate, conversational farewell in which the speaker accepts separation with quiet tenderness and repeated rueful refrain. The tone and structure suit musical performance, blending plainspoken narrative with elegiac intimacy. As an early Cohen piece, it shows the singer-poet approach that shaped his first album: songs that read like pared-down poems and poems that function as songs.
Read Complete AnalysesI loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow: Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time, walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me, it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea, but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow: Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.