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Monday, September 28, 2020

 

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









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