There is a war (1974-1993)
Read the original lyrics of the song
Hear about "There is a war"
 Berlin 24/09/74
Sometimes the interviewers are sent after me to ask me questions,I who am the most confused of men.This is the platform i have established.
 Paris 19/10/74
Sometimes i'm interviewed by Newspapers,and they ask me the meaning   of my songs.And if the interviewers are French,they ask the meaning of meaning.This is my platform.
 1979 from the Harry Rasky's film "The Song of Leonard Cohen"
That's an earlier version and I guess a less charitable version of the predicament. But it's important to have that because even in the midst of this flood or catastrophe which we are in, these are the days of the flood, these are the final days. In a sense all the institutions are and have been swept away and the ethical question is: "What is the proper behaviour, what is the appropriate behaviour in the midst of a catastrophe?" That song is a kind of war cry to strengthen to participants,to inform them that there was a conflict, but it's an uncharitable song and it's very difficult to sing correctly without making it sound like a slogan. There is a proper way to sing it but I don't think I've discovered the right way..
 Warsaw   22/03/85
It was amusing to me that in an interview that I did in Poznan, that the commentator after hearing a version of this song in Polish, described it as "decadent". My mother would have been very angry with him. She sang songs like that around the house all the time. Was he saying that my mother was decadent?? There is a war between the rich and poor… There is a war......
San Francisco 03/07/93
About a thousand years ago there was this brief period of about eleven minutes that are now referred to by the term known as the sixties. A kind of interesting sociological black hole into which all our best aspirations were sucked and disappeared. A seductive movement, I myself accepted the invitation for three or four seconds. And then gloomy chap that I am, I was compelled back in 1970 or 1971 to write this song. 
Austin July 12th, 1993
About a thousand years ago there was a very brief period of time that is now referred to as the 60's, last eleven or twelve minutes before the hustlers and hoaxers poured in. And it has become a kind of "black hole" in the national Cosmos into which you know all the noblest and fiercest aspirations of a generation sunk and disappeared in a kind of Bermuda Triangle of Idealism. And this is the song that I wrote many many years ago when I refuse that seductive invitation to join in a general celebration of another silly idea. 
Boston   16/07/93
About a thousand years ago, there was this brief period of about 11 or 12 minutes, that is now referred to as the sixties, a hated time, an intoxicating time. I enjoyed myself thoroughly for five or six minutes. It has become a kind of black hole in the sociological cosmos, a kind of Bermuda Triangle, into which all the noblest and worthwhile ideas disappeared forever. A seductive moment, however being the gloomy chap that you know me to be, I was able to resist it. I think it was back in 1971 when it reached its most acute phase, it was then that I was inspired to write this mournful and bitter ditty in response to all the flabby liars of the Aquarian Age.