© Øyvind Teig - 14. april 2002

Take This Waltz

Federico García Lorca wrote the poem Little Viennese Waltz. Based on it Leonard Cohen wrote the song Take This Waltz. The melody is beautiful, the text surrealistic, with a poetic end: O my love, o my love. Take this waltz, take this waltz. It's yours now. It's all that there is.

Take This Waltz

You were resting on the sofa
I played Take This Waltz from the record

- Oh please, could we try a dance, I begged
I fetched you, you let yourself willingly hoist
My hands, your waist
After all these years, still warm
You danced, but the body was not yours
Pain ruled
And I feared

Then the sofa demanded you
Our last dance was over
Thank you Lorca, thank you Cohen, thank you my dear

The waltz is only yours now
The waltz is only mine now

No