Thanks for the Dance

Producer

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Thanks for the Dance Lyrics

Thanks for the dance
I'm sorry you're tired
The evening has hardly begun

Thanks for the dance
Try to look inspired
One-two-three, one-two-three, one

There is a rose in your hair
Your shoulders are bare
You've been wearing this costume forever
So turn up the music
Pour out the wine
Stop at the surface
The surface is fine
We don't need to go any deeper

Thanks for the dance
I hear that we're married
One-two-three, one-two-three, one
Thanks for the dance
And the baby you carried
It was almost a daughter or a son

And there's nothing to do
But to wonder if you
Are as hopeless as me
And as decent
We're joined in the spirit
Joined at the hip
Joined in the panic
Wondering if
We've come to some sort
Of agreement

It was fine, it was fast
We were first, we were last
In line at the
Temple of Pleasure
But the green was so green
And the blue was so blue
I was so I
And you were so you
The crisis was light
As a feather

Thanks for the dance
It was hell, it was swell, it was fun
Thanks for all the dances
One-two-three, one-two-three, one

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About

This song bio is unreviewed

Zen Buddhist, Richard Aitken, in his book The Mind of Clover; writes about dealing with difficulties, and the two options we have to respond with. To resist or to dance. To resist means to wish for things to be differently, to protest against that which is beyond our control. The second option is to dance with life, to dance with difficulties, and to embrace change and sit in the fire and approach things with open arms. Leonard Cohen’s song is of reflection, acceptance, and as always, longing.

Note: this song first appeared on Anjani Thomas’s album “Blue Alert”. Anjani was Leonard Cohen’s girlfriend and longtime backing singer. Other songs from her album (which were all written by Cohen) later appeared in one form or another on Leonard Cohen’s own albums.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What did Leonard Cohen say about "Thanks for the Dance"?

He tried to get a version of it on Old Ideas and Popular Problems, and on You Want It Darker. He’d been even trying to figure out his way of doing that song for years, and I think that he would have been incredibly pleased with this particular version. It was meant to evoke things like ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’ and ‘Hallelujah.’ It has a certain strain of lightness and cheekiness that some of his work has: ‘Stop at the surface, the surface is fine.’ To have that kind of resignation but humor really does encapsulate where his mind was at the end. Jennifer Warnes, his longtime vocal partner, came to my backyard and sang on that. When we completed it, we knew we had the record. There was something about the invocation of that union, between the feminine voice and my father’s low baritone—it just touches a nerve and makes you feel like you’ve heard the song before. There was this sense that You Want It Darker had a kind of gravity and darkness, and this offering has a softer, flower-pushing-up quality and romance to it.

–via Adam Cohen with Apple Music

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