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 ...

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 / and the white man dancin'.

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 ...

When they said REPENT REPENT ...

LEONARD COHEN (1992) THE FUTURE