Laurie Anderson The Dream Before Lyrics

The Dream Before Lyrics

(for Walter Benjamin)

Hansel and Gretel are alive and well
And they're living in Berlin
She is a cocktail waitress
He had a part in a Fassbinder film
And they sit around at night now
drinking schnapps and gin
And she says:  Hansel, you're really bringing me down
And he says:  Gretel, yu can really be a bit*h
He says:  I've wated my life on our stupid legend
When my one and only love
was the wicked witch.

She said:  What is history?
And he said:  History is an angel
being blown backwards into the future
He said:  History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel
backwards into the future
And this storm, this storm
is called
Progress

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