Take this Waltz - chords, tab and comments


This song was first released in 1986 as a part of the Federico García Lorca tribute album "Poet in New York" (Poeta en Nueva York), and the words are a loose translation of "Pequeño vals vienés" (Little Viennese Waltz). In 1988 it was included with Cohen's studio album "I'm Your Man", added violin and the marvellous co-vocal of Jennifer Warnes.
The spanish poet's full name was Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (1898 – 1936). He was also a playwright and theatre director. He was executed by nationalists at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and his body was never found. His works was a great inspiration to Cohen in his youth, and his daughter got the name "Lorca" after him.
         C             C/B        Am
now in Vienna there's ten pretty women
            C             Em             Am
there's a shoulder where death comes to cry
            F                      G
there's a lobby with nine hundred windows
            F                         C  ...E7
there's a tree where the doves go to die
           Am
there's a piece that was torn from the morning
        Dm           A7          Dm
and it hangs in the gallery of frost
F            C
ay  ay  ay  ay
           E7      Bdim      Am
take this waltz   take this waltz
           D                           F
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

[G ... Am ... G ... G7]

      Am
this waltz  this waltz  this waltz  this waltz
          Dm                  Am
with its very own breath of brandy and death
Dm                        C
dragging its tail in the sea
C major
C
F major
F
G major
G
D major
D
G seventh
G7
E seventh
E7
A seventh
A7
A minor
Am
E minor
Em
D minor
Dm
B diminuished
Bdim
Leonard Cohen