Suzanne by Leonard Cohen – Judy Collins Audio and Song Lyrics

Suzanne is a beautiful song written by Leonard Cohen. My favorite recording was by Judy Collins who’s lovely voice gave the song a haunting quality. It is a good song for guitar fingerpicking – one of my favorites to play on guitar. Hear how great Judy sounds in the audio clip at the bottom of this post.

Suzanne Lyrics and chords:

G
Suzanne takes you down
To her place by the river,
Am
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night beside her,
G
And you know that she’s half crazy,
And that’s why you want to be there;
Bm
And she feeds you tea and oranges
C
That come all the way from China;
G
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her,
Am
She gets you on her wave-length
And lets the river answer
G
That you’ve always been her lover.

Chorus:
Bm
And you want to travel with her,
C
And you want to travel blind,
G
And you know that you can trust her,
Am
For you’ve touched her perfect body
G            Am
With your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When He walked upon the water,
And he spent a long time watching
From a lonely wooden tower,
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see Him,
He said, “All men shall be brothers, then,
Until the sea shall free them,”
But He himself was broken
Long before the sky would open,
Forsaken, almost human,
He sank beneath your wisdom
Like a stone.

Chorus:
And you want to travel with Him,
And you want to travel blind,
And you think you maybe trust Him,
For He’s touched your perfect body
With His mind.

Suzanne takes you down
To her place by the river,
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night forever,
And the sun pours down like honey,
On our lady of the harbour;
And she shows you where to look
Amid the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed,
There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love,
And they will lean that way forever,
While Suzanne holds the mirror.

Chorus (with Judy Collins’ variation on the lyrics):
And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you think maybe you’ll trust her,
For she’s touched your perfect body
With her mind.

There don’t seem to be many online videos of Judy Collins singing this. I found one of the best recordings on a little known site: Wolfgang’s Vault. I really like this site for hard to find music – their focus is on rock ‘n roll memorabilia and concerts. Here the audio of a live 1973 concert (Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco, CA) with Judy Collins singing Suzanne while playing guitar.

Legendary concert performances available for download at Wolfgang’s Vault

Technorati Tags: audio, Guitar Fingerpicking, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, live concert, recording, song, songs, Suzanne