(Let's sing another song, boys, this one has grown old and bitter)
Ah his fingernails, I see they're broken,
His ships they're all on fire.
The moneylender's lovely little daughter
Ah, she's eaten, she's eaten with desire.
She spies him through the glasses
From the pawnshops of her wicked father.
She hails him with a microphone
That some poor singer, just like me, had to leave her.
She tempts him with a clarinet,
She waves a Nazi dagger.
She finds him lying in a heap;
She wants to be his woman.
He says, "Yes, I might go to sleep
But kindly leave, leave the future,
Leave it open."
He stands where it is steep,
Oh I guess he thinks that he's the very first one,
His hand upon his leather belt now
Like it was the wheel of some big ocean liner.
And she will learn to touch herself so well
As all the sails burn down like paper.
And he has lit the chain
Of his famous cigarillo.
Ah, they'll never, they'll never ever reach the moon,
At least not the one that we're after;
It's floating broken on the open sea, look out there, my friends,
And it carries no survivors.
But lets leave these lovers wondering
Why they cannot have each other,
And let's sing another song, boys,
This one has grown old and bitter.
Ah his fingernails, I see they're broken,
His ships they're all on fire.
The moneylender's lovely little daughter
Ah, she's eaten, she's eaten with desire.
She spies him through the glasses
From the pawnshops of her wicked father.
She hails him with a microphone
That some poor singer, just like me, had to leave her.
She tempts him with a clarinet,
She waves a Nazi dagger.
She finds him lying in a heap;
She wants to be his woman.
He says, "Yes, I might go to sleep
But kindly leave, leave the future,
Leave it open."
He stands where it is steep,
Oh I guess he thinks that he's the very first one,
His hand upon his leather belt now
Like it was the wheel of some big ocean liner.
And she will learn to touch herself so well
As all the sails burn down like paper.
And he has lit the chain
Of his famous cigarillo.
Ah, they'll never, they'll never ever reach the moon,
At least not the one that we're after;
It's floating broken on the open sea, look out there, my friends,
And it carries no survivors.
But lets leave these lovers wondering
Why they cannot have each other,
And let's sing another song, boys,
This one has grown old and bitter.
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I think he means to correct the listener's false understanding and expectation of such romantic scene. "we" have very banally and obvious expectations from a sexual scene as this one, just as the woman in the song has, and Cohen is trying to mess up our romantic and tacky dreams telling us they will never fulfil our desires. from here: "lets sing another song boys, this one has grown old and bitter"