Sonic Sorcery: Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows"

As one of the great writers of the 20th century, we could analyse Leonard Cohen songs all day (we peered into his uncanny ability to deeply link music and lyrics in "A Peak at Prosody", which takes a close look at "Hallelujah" as well as other songs that employ the technique).

Today, let's briefly examine Cohen's classic "Everybody Knows" - a song from Leonard's 1988 album "I'm Your Man". 

The song barely charted at its release, but was almost immediately a hit for film makers. Cohen's version was used in the 1994 film, "Exotica", and it was covered for many more films - from 1990's "Pump It Up" (covered by Concrete Blonde) to 2017's "Justice League" (covered by Sigrid).

So, let's break down what's happening with the lyrics first, and then the music.