This song has some great lyrics (you can read them amid the chords below). I think the best songs are like short stories, where they allude to enough extra detail that you can fill in a lot of backstory however you see fit. In the same way, I think that’s how the best songs manage to mean so much to so many different people… they are so wide open to interpretation that the listeners do all the work to mold it into something they can feel deeply. The song itself just nudges them in the direction they already want to go.
Here’s a clip from some movie, set to the music from Leonard Cohen. This is actually the first time I’ve heard the original version of the song… I have a live performance by Regina Spektor which has a different flow to it. I like the Spektor version better, frankly.
Chords found on the internet:
Chelsea Hotel#2 - Leonard Cohen
F C Bflat F
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
C Dm
You were talking so brave and so sweet.
F C Bflat
Giving me head on the unmade bed
F Bflat C
While the limousines wait in the street
Dm Bflat
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
F Am/E Dm
We were running for the money and the flesh
Bflat F
And that was called love for the workers in song,
Bflat C
Probably still is for those of them left.
Bflat F
And then you got away, didn't you, baby?
Am/E Dm
You just turned your back on the crowd.
Bflat F
You got away, I never once heard you say,
Bflat F Bflat F
"I need you, I don't need you, I need you, I don't need you,"
Bflat Dm C (To lead into next verse).
And all of that jiving around.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
You were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men,
But for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
You fixed yourself, you said, "Well, never mind,
We are ugly but we have the music."
Then, after the 2nd verse...
C F C Bflat F
I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best
F C Dm
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
F C Bflat F
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
Bflat C
That all, I don't think of you that often.