Leonard Cohen by Richard Avedon

Song for 2020

Give me back my broken night

My mirrored room, my secret life

It’s lonely here

There’s no one left to torture

Give me absolute control

Over every living soul

And lie beside me, baby

That’s an order!

Give me crack and anal sex

Take the only tree that’s left

And stuff it up the hole

In your culture

Give me back the Berlin wall

Give me Stalin and St Paul

I’ve seen the future, brother:

It is murder

Things are going to slide, 

slide in all directions

Won’t be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world

Has crossed the threshold

And it has overturned

The order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind

You never will, you never did

I'm the little Jew

Who wrote the Bible

I've seen the nations rise and fall

I've heard their stories, heard them all

But love's the only engine of survival

Your servant here, he has been told

To say it clear, to say it cold

It's over, it ain't going

Any further

And now the wheels of heaven stop

You feel the devil's riding crop

Get ready for the future

It is murder

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

Won't be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world

Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned

The order of the soul

When they said repent repent

I wonder what they meant

When they said repent repent

I wonder what they meant

When they said repent repent

I wonder what they meant

There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code

Your private life will suddenly explode

There'll be phantoms

There'll be fires on the road

And the white man dancing

You'll see a woman hanging upside down

Her features covered by her fallen gown

And all the lousy little poets coming round

Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson

Give me back the Berlin wall

Give me Stalin and St. Paul

Give me Christ

Or give me Hiroshima

Destroy another fetus now

We don't like children anyhow

I've seen the future, baby

It is murder

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

Won't be nothing

Nothing you can measure anymore

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world

Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned

The order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

I wonder what they meant

When they said REPENT REPENT

–  Leonard Cohen