Death of a Ladies' Man:

Death of a Ladies' Man

written by Leonard Cohen and Phil Spector


Intro: F . . . |G . . . |Gm . C . |Bb . F . |
       F . . . |G . . . |Gm . C . |Bb . F . |
       F . . . |F .

        F                               G
Ah the man she wanted all her life was hanging by a thread
    Gm          C              Bb               F
"I never even knew how much I wanted you," she said
     F                                   G
His muscles they were numbered and his style was obsolete
    Gm           C                    Bb              F
"O baby, I have come too late." She knelt beside his feet

"I'll never see a face like yours in years of men to come
I'll never see such arms again in wrestling or in love."
And all his virtues burning in the smokey Holocaust
She took unto herself most everything her lover lost
Dm
Now the master of this landscape he was standing there at the view
         Gm
With a sparrow of St. Francis that he was preaching to
     Am
She beckoned to the sentry of his high religious mood
                 Gm               /f#                F           C      F
She said, "I'll make a place between my legs, I'll show you solitude."
He offered her an orgy in a many mirrored room
He promised her protection for the issue of her womb
She moved her body hard against a sharpened metal spoon
She stopped the bloody rituals of passage to the moon

She took his much admired oriental frame of mind
And the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind
She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine
"This mental space is occupied and everything is mine."

He tried to make a final stand beside the railway track
She said, "The art of longing's over and it's never coming back."
She took his tavern parliament, his cap, his cocky dance
She mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache
The last time that I saw him he was trying hard to get
A woman's education but he's not a woman yet
And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy
Who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy
So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed
It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far

It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far

It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far

Guitarist-friendly version

Capo 5th fret

Intro: C . . . |D . . . |Dm . G . |F . C . |
       C . . . |D . . . |Dm . G . |F . C . |
       C . . . |C .

        C                               D
Ah the man she wanted all her life was hanging by a thread
    Dm          G              F                C
"I never even knew how much I wanted you," she said
     C                                   D
His muscles they were numbered and his style was obsolete
    Dm           G                    F               C
"O baby, I have come too late." She knelt beside his feet

...
Am
Now the master of this landscape he was standing there at the view
         Dm
With a sparrow of St. Francis that he was preaching to
     Em
She beckoned to the sentry of his high religious mood
                 Dm               /c#                C           G      C
She said, "I'll make a place between my legs, I'll show you solitude."
...