A Thousand Kisses Deep

Whenever I hear this song, the phrase "Boogie Street" takes precedence over the titular phrase "A Thousand Kisses Deep." Boogie Street is a place where Dionysus would be at home, as the god who breaks formal limits, and revels in the intoxication of... well, reveling, and the risk-taking that such reveling produces. The word boogie itself connotes a dance without limits, usually expressing a desire to "let it all loose" to exhilarating party music at the expense of any formality.
Cohen paints boogie street with metaphors of youth- "the ponies (not older horses) run, the girls are young, the odds are there to beat." Youth, Cohen implies, is a time to beat the odds, a time to take risks in order to survive (the betting on ponies), and in order to make love (the girls are young) and thereby ease one's solitude, which is nearly always present in differing degrees in Cohen's songs.
Whereas boogie street is the place where one's limits dissolve in reveling and risk-taking, returning to a place "A Thousand Kisses Deep," implies the rational reflection and an intentional numbering of experience. To reflect on just how many kisses one has had means soberly reflecting on the past, numbering one's experiences. The word "deep" also implies that this act of numbering is more profound than the shallower joys found on boogie street. However, the place of a thousand kissses deep, the place of rational reflection combined with nostalgia for the past, lacks some of the advantages of "boogie street:" The benefits of boogie street are the focus on the present (when dancing, you are simply following the present beat), expanding one's limits through the reveling and risk-taking of the moment , and of a joyful wandering without intention. "A thousand kisses deep," though, is the place of sober reflection we all return to, after the exhilaration of a night or two on boogie street fades, and allows us to make sense of and number the experiences that we've had so far on boogie street.