Lyrics
[Instrumental Intro]
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh, let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Oh, dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, oh, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
[Instrumental]
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand, touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Background
"Dance Me to the End of Love" is a 1984 song by Leonard Cohen and first recorded by him for his 1984 album Various Positions. [1]
Although structured as a love song, "Dance Me to the End Of Love" was in fact inspired by the Holocaust. In a 1995 radio interview, Cohen said of the song:
It's curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that's why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt. So, that music, "Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin," meaning the beauty thereof being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation. But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song — it’s not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.
Meaning
The song may be about the Holocaust, or may be about love between lovers, but I would like to interpret the song to be about love in the broadest sense, or as Cohen puts it, about embracing all passionate activity.
All lives come to an end and many experience great difficulties; but there can be beauty in life even in difficult circumstances, thus "dance me to your beauty with a burning violin" and "dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in".
In the second verse, "witnesses" may be present in court, at a wedding or a crime scene; we can see the beauty in things without others being present. "Babylon" refers to a supposed place of evil as depicted in the Bible [2]. "Limits" refers to rules and restrictions.
In the third verse, the "wedding" does not have to be limited to traditional weddings; It may be about friendship, a hobby, a love of life, or love of one's belief. "Beneath and above our love" refers to the ways people conduct themselves, possibly fraudulently (beneath our love) and possibly idealistically (above our love).
The fourth verse appears to be talking about people in refugee camps. The "touch me with your glove" in the fifth verse may refer to people in hospital in their final days.
Notes:
- Wikipedia — Dance me to the end of love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance Me to the End of Love
- Wikipedia — Whore of Babylon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore of Babylon
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