Lyrics to
Is This What You Wanted

This version of Is This What You Wanted was released by Leonard Cohen in 1974.

Our Decade Lyrics Leonard Cohen profile has all of the Is This What You Wanted lyrics from 1974 and many more songs from the Leonard Cohen discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Leonard Cohen or about the 1970s in general.

You were the promise at dawn,
I was the morning after.
You were Jesus Christ my Lord,
I was the money lender.
You were the sensitive woman,
I was the very reverend Freud.
You were the manual orgasm,
I was the dirty little boy.
And is this what you wanted
to live in a house that is haunted
by the ghost of you and me?

Is this what you wanted …

You were Marlon Brando,
I was Steve McQueen.
You were K.Y. Jelly,
I was Vaseline.
You were the father of modern medicine,
I was Mr. Clean.
You where the whore and the beast of Babylon,
I was Rin Tin Tin.

And is this what you wanted …

And is this what you wanted …

You got old and wrinkled,
I stayed seventeen.
You lusted after so many,
I lay here with one.
You defied your solitude,
I came through alone.
You said you could never love me,
I undid your gown.

And is this what you wanted …

And is this what you wanted …

I mean is this what you wanted …

That’s right, is this what you wanted …

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Leonard Cohen has released many songs over the years besides Is This What You Wanted. Leonard Cohen released songs from 1967 to 2004 spanning across albums like Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Songs From A Room, Songs Of Love And Hate, New Skin For The Old Ceremony, Death Of A Ladies' Man, Recent Songs, Various Positions, I'm Your Man, The Future, Ten New Songs, and Dear Heather. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Leonard Cohen.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Is This What You Wanted by Leonard Cohen

The lyrics for Is This What You Wanted are defined as the words making up the song released by Leonard Cohen in 1974. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Is This What You Wanted have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only Leonard Cohen and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Is This What You Wanted by Leonard Cohen if you think through it. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Is This What You Wanted" means the words set to the music of Is This What You Wanted, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Leonard Cohen. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Is This What You Wanted and the lyrics to Is This What You Wanted are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Leonard Cohen who came here looking just for the lyrics to Is This What You Wanted, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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