I recently stated that the arrangement of Leonard Cohen's "True Love Leaves No Trace" has always seemed to me like a few different songs bumped into each other during the
last dance of the prom, but I realize that I missed the mark with my description. It may be a last dance but the arrangement is better suited to a bar. It's the lyric that belongs to the prom:
"As the mist leaves no traces
on the dark green hill,
So my body leaves no scar on you,
and never will"
As beautiful as that verse is to me, I've always had trouble believing. It's not that I think that Leonard's lying, it's that his seems to be a truth believed only after a few too many bendings of the elbow, uttered by a lopsided grin behind a mask of cigarette smoke. It sounds right for the moment but never for the long haul, when the morning light exposes everyone's reality.
If true love leaves no traces, how can it be real? What was felt? What was learned?
"True Love Leaves No Traces" can be found on "Death of a Ladies' Man".
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