Lyrics The Future - Leonard Cohen

The Future

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
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 (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said (they said) repent (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, and 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
And things are going to slide
Slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
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 (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
There’ll be the breaking of the ancient Western code
And 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 comin' round
Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson, oh
And the white man dancin'
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and Saint 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
And things are going to slide
Slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
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 (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said (they said), oh repent (repent), oh repent
I wonder what they meant
Yeah, when they said (they said) repent (repent), repent
I wonder what they meant
I wonder what they meant