Love:
- "Suzanne"
Sex:
- "Dont Go Home with Your Hard-On"
- "Chelsea Hotel #2"
Depression/Suicide: Cohen suffered with depression for many years (although lesser in recent years) and writes about depression and suicide, with frequent emphasis on personal stories (ie. one about someone who decides at the last moment not to kill themselves-could this have been him?)
- "Beautiful Losers"
- "Seems So Long Ago,
- "Dress Rehearsal Rag"
War: Often considered a Pacifist...Although he fought in the Yom Kippur War, when askedwhich side he supported in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Cohen responded, "I don't want to speak of wars or sides ... Personal process is one thing, it's blood, it's the identification one feels with their roots and their origins. The militarism I practice as a person and a writer is another thing.... I don't wish to speak about war."
- "Night Comes On"
Politics/Social Justice:
- "Democracy," he laments "the wars against disorder/ the sirens night and day/ the fires of the homeless/ the ashes of the gay."- he believed that the United States wasnt actually a democracy, because "the rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor/ And there's a mighty judgment coming" ("Tower of Song").
Music:
- "Hallelujah"
Religion: Cohen is Jewish, and he has drawn from Jewish religious and cultural imagry throughout his career.
- "Story of Isaac"
- "Who by Fire"- the words and melody of which echo the Unetaneh Tokef, an 11th-century liturgical poem recited on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
- "Hallelujah"- evokes the biblical King David composing a song that "pleased the Lord" and continues with references to Bathsheba and Samson- Broader Jewish themes sound throughout the album "Various Positions"
Isolationism: while Cohen was in a buddhist monastery
Interpersonal Relationships
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