Chords for Leonard Cohen is inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF)

Before Leonard Cohen, there were songs.
And after hearing Leonard Cohen, there are no songs quite like his.
_ He's changed all our lives with the complexity of his sadness, the breadth of his love.
None of us can [F] imagine a time when he didn't tell us that that's no way to say goodbye,
_ or the knowing generosity of not being lovers like that, and besides, it would still be all right.
_ He gets inside your brain, your heart, your lungs.
_ You remember him, you feel him, you breathe him.
He is our connection to the meaning [E] of ecstasy,
our access to another world we suspected existed, but which he puts into song.
_ We love you, Leonard, _ _ but in that love is some fear, _
_ [Bb] _ _ fear that you are telling us the truth,
_ and that the truth will make us know ourselves through unbearable beauty _ in painful remorse.
_ Leonard told me when he began singing that the time was over
when poets should sit on marble staircases in long black cloaks.
_ He's been standing on that staircase for all the world to see for 40 years now.
_ In one of your first published poems, you wrote,
I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name, _
women give themselves to him. _ _ _
We have [E] heard those words, and we have all given ourselves to him.
_ It honors me deeply to present this award to Leonard Cohen, _ our Leonard Cohen.
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Thank you so [E] much, and please, _ [Eb] the brevity and poverty of these remarks
do not reflect the abundance of feeling in my heart for all of you
[E] [Ab] and for the _ [Eb] deep hospitality you have given to my work over the years. _
[G] If I knew where the good [N] songs came from, I'd go there more often. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ So it is that _ _ _ we shuffle behind our [Eb] songs _ into the Hall of [F] Fame,
_ _ _ shuffle awkwardly, not quite believing that we wrote them, but [N] happy that you do. _ _ _ _
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_ You have been so good to me over the years. _
My heart is filled with gratitude.
_ Georges Dore wrote that great song,
Si tu savais comment s'ennuie à la manique,
tu m'éclaireras bien plus souvent [D] à la manique.
[Gb] If you knew how life [Bb] drags on [E] at La Manique,
[Gm] you'd [Ab] write to me a lot more often [E] at La Manique.
[Fm] And that's what we're [E] all saying to one another.
If you knew [Eb] how life dragged on, [E] you'd write to us a lot more often.
[Eb] You'd write each of us to one another.
_ I'm so privileged and [E] so proud and so honored
that [D] you have accepted [Db] some of my letters.
[Ebm] Thank you [N] so much. _ _ _ _
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