Lyrics to
Leaving Green Sleeves

This version of Leaving Green Sleeves was released by Leonard Cohen in 1974.

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Alas, my love, you did me wrong,
to cast me out discourteously,
for I have loved you so long,
delighting in your very company.
Now if you intend to show me disdain,
don’t you know it all the more enraptures me,
for even so I still remain your lover in captivity.
Green sleeves, you’re all alone,
the leaves have fallen, the men have gone.
Green sleeves, there’s no one home,
not even the Lady Green Sleeves

I sang my songs, I told my lies,
to lie between your matchless thighs.
And ain’t it fine, ain’t it wild
to finally end our exercise
Then I saw you naked in the early dawn,
oh, I hoped you would be someone new.
I reached for you but you were gone,
so lady I’m going too.

Green sleeves, you’re all alone …

Green sleeves, you’re all alone,
the leaves have fallen, the men have all gone home.
Green sleeves, it’s so easily done,
leaving the Lady Green Sleeves.

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Leonard Cohen has released many songs over the years besides Leaving Green Sleeves. 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.

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About Lyrics and Leaving Green Sleeves by Leonard Cohen

When you decide to study the lyrics to Leaving Green Sleeves, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Leonard Cohen. Some of the lyrics to Leaving Green Sleeves have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Leonard Cohen and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Leaving Green Sleeves if you take apart the structure of the words. 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 Leaving Green Sleeves" means the words set to the music of Leaving Green Sleeves, 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 Leaving Green Sleeves and the lyrics to Leaving Green Sleeves 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 Leaving Green Sleeves, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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