The Future

Not in the best of moods once again; so I gave the jester in me the night off and replaced him with the prophet of doom. I guess that frequenting almost daily blogs dealing with Lebanese politics is hazardous to one’s mental health.
Living in Lebanon can be hazardous as a friend of mine, David, discovered lately.
No matter how hard I try to hold on to optimism and sanity, the forces of LOCAL evil always find a way of dragging me down. I had decided lately not to watch the local news in order to bring back a false sense of well being, but found myself drawn back into this cesspool of hatred that is the main ingredient in Lebanese daily life. I thought I was over David’s encounter with “Divine” Lebanese terror when I saw him with Nat and the kids all healthy; until by mistake, I watched an array of more bearded men giving me a clear view of what the future might hold. As if the understanding between Yellow and Orange was not troubling enough, a bunch of Salafists (if the terminology is correct) extremists joined in the club of those narrow sighted bigots.
So I switched off the TV and decided to listen to some music. How appropriate it was that the first song on I heard was the Future by Leonard Cohen (An artist that is banned in Lebanon for being Jewish).
At the risk of being labeled once again a “3amil” I will share with the few readers I have the lyrics and the song, which I dedicate to all the peace loving people who are as disillusioned as I am.

“ 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 .”



If only this song was not written and sung by Leonard Cohen, maybe then my fellow Lebanese would get the true meaning !
TFEH!