Closing Time

Ah, we're drinking and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the (Hiram) Walker wisdom running high.
And my very sweet companion,
she's the Angel of Compassion,
she's rubbing half the world against her thigh.
And every drinker, every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her;
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime.
All the women tear their blouses off
the men they dance on the polka-dots,
and it's partner found and partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's closing time.

Ah, we're lonely, we're romantic
and the cider's laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit's crying, 'Where's the beef?'
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief.
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime;
and I swear it happened just like this
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss,
the Gates of Love they budged an inch,
I can't say much has happened since
but closing time.

I loved you for your beauty
but that doesn't make a fool of me:
you were in it for your beauty too.
I loved you for your body
there's a voice that sounds like G-d to me
declaring that your body's really you.

I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime.
And I missed you since the place got wrecked
and I just don't care what happens next,
it looks like freedom but it feels like death,
it's something in between, I guess:
it's closing time.
And I missed you since the place got wrecked
by the winds of change and the weeds of sex,
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess:
it's closing time.

We're drinking and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening.
The place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night.
And my very close companion
gets me fumbling, gets me laughing
she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight.
I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime;
and the whole dam place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the Devil and it's once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights;
we're busted in the blinding lights
of closing time.

~Leonard Cohen