The Stranger Song

I feel this song is not so much a critique of men who use women, but of women who are attracted to these sorts of men. The woman in this song is in a cycle of bad relationships. The repetition of those two verses is symbolic of that. It creates a loop where it becomes difficult to tell where one relationship starts and another one finishes.

The first three verses tell about the end of a relationship. The fourth verse starts with, "But now another stranger seems to want you to ignore your dreams...", which indicates the beginning of something new and the hope that it will be different this time. The fact that the song ends with those repeated verses shows that it doesn't. But the heart of the song tells us that the blame for this failure lies as much with the woman as the man. Simply put, she is looking for men who are unreliable "strangers".

Consider the fifth verse, starting with "you hate to see another man lay down his hand". This woman is attracted to adventurous strangers. But the moment she has snared one, then he is no longer adventurous or a stranger. She can see his dreams curling up like smoke above his shoulder and he becomes someone boring and unattractive.

When she invites him to "come in sit down", she finds she can't close the door to her shelter. The brilliant line "the handle of the road" instead of the handle of the door puts a different spin on things. From the POV of the men, she offers shelter and stability. Her door is the door to shelter. But from her POV her door is the door to the road and adventure and a neverending stream of strangers coming in and going out. Ultimately, this is how she wants it.

Next, the man is puzzled by her ambilvalence and starts to pull away. He says the he was sure they would meet between the trains they were waiting for. This is an oft-repeated Cohen idea about relationships being the things that happen while you're waiting for something better to come along (see Waiting For The Miracle) He says he is going but invites her to go along (to meet him on the bridge). She says she might but we know she never will.

Thus we return to those two repeated verses, but whereas at the beginning she seems to be the jilted lover abandoned by a man who is "a player", we know now that she shares complicity in the failure of this relationship and the echoing of the beginning and the end tells us there will no doubt be many more relationships like this.