LAURIE ANDERSON - The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin)
from Strange Angels (1989)
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
.
