laurie anderson for walter benjamin

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
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, you can really be a bitch
He says: I've wasted 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

laurie anderson e lou reed

In our sleep as we speak
Listen to the drums beat
As we speak
In our sleep as we speak
Listen to the drums beat
In our sleep
In our sleep as we speak
Listen to the drums beat
As we speak
As we speak in our sleep
Listen to the drums beat
In our sleep
In our sleep as we speak
Listen to the drums beat
As we speak

laurie anderson

You're out on the ocean and you get pulled down
Freefall to the bottom
Like when you're drowning or falling asleep
You get turned around
And when you think you're swimming to the surface
You're swimming straight down.
Down to the bottom. All the way to the bottom.
Secret codes and cryptograms
I'm lost in your words I'm swimming.
We're going down to the bottom. All the way to the bottom.
Rapture of the deep.
I got your letter. I couldn't read it. It was a cryptogram.
Did it say Take me with you or Take me as I am?
We're going down to the bottom.
All the way to the bottom. We get turned around.
There is another world spinning inside of this one.
I remember where I came from
There were tropical breezes and a wide open sea
I remember my childhood
I remember being free.
Down to the bottom.
All the way to the bottom. We get turned around.
There is another world inside of this one.
Rapture of the deep.
We're going down to the bottom.
There is another world spinning inside of this one.

laurie

gonna find you

Coolsville
Coolsville
Coolsville
Coolsville
So perfect So nice

Hey little darlin,
I'm comin' your way little darlin
And I'll be there
Just as soon as I'm all straightened out
Yeah just as soon as I'm perfect.

Some things are just pictures
They're scenes before your eyes
And don't look now
I'm right behind you
Coolsville
Coolsville
So perfect
So nice So nice!

And down by the ocean under the boardwalk
You were so handsome we didn't talk
You're my ideal
I'm gonna find you
I'm goin to Coolsville
So perfect
So ideal

This train
This city
This train
Some things are just pictures
They're scenes before your eyes
And don't look now
I'm right behind you
Coolsville

She said:
Oh Jesus, why are you always in the arms of somebody else?
He said:
Oh man! I don't need anybody's help I'm gonna get there on my own.

This train
This city
This train
This city
This train

Laurie

They say that heaven is like TV
A perfect little world that doesn't really need you
And everything there is made of light
And the days keep going by
Here they come