Paroles Lithuania de Dan Bern

Textes et Paroles de Lithuania

I'd like to be a good American and write an elegy to the automobileBut no matter where it takes me I don't really feel any differentI've had one foot in the black and white two dimensional ghosts ofLithuania, and one foot in sunny California where the people are all friendlyas they drive their Mercedes to the mini-malls and take a lunchor network with you or drive past and kill you for no reasonThese are my ghosts: Uncle Emmanuel, Uncle Eli, Aunt Mia, and mygrandparents, Jenny and Tobias, none of whom I've ever metI saw some letters once that they wrote to my dad in Palestine in1940, not too long before they all got shotMy only bridge to them is my dad, he knew them and he knew me, but now he's gone tooSometimes I want to get next to them, sometimes I want to push themall away, say you're not my ghosts, I live in sunny California,I drive a 1992 Red Chevrolet, I drive fast, and I drive as farwest as anyone can drive, eight thousand miles from Lithuania andif I could escape by driving further then I would, but it doesn't get me anyplace newI guess if I was a true American, I could write an elegy to theautomobile, but when I jump in I can't escape the way I feelI sometimes want to dance on Hitler's grave, and shout out,"Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Leonard Cohen, Philip Roth, Bob Dylan,Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, Abby Hoffman, Leonard Bernstein, Harry Houdini, Sandy Kofacs!"And then I want to scream and sing as loud as I can, to the chandeliers that sway dangerously overhead, proclaimingKrystalnacht is overI say that Krystalnacht is over! The only broken glass tonightwill be from wedding glasses shattered under boot heelsWe're not the ones who are in the museum, its you,your curious mustache and your chamber of horrorsI've a friend my age whose parents met in Auschwitz on the day ofLiberation, she works for a big company now in San Francisco, andjust moved into a new houseI've a friend who lies in her hospital bed after fifteenoperations from a botched appendectomy. I go to her with a heartheavy from the things on my mind, she cheers me up.I saw my dad tell jokes, and teach me how to laugh, thirty yearsafter his parents, and brothers, sister were all shot, murdered inthe streets of Lithuania.I see trees growing tall and the sun coming up, and the oceanroaring home, and know I must go on I must go on! It would becowardly to stop, it would be an aberration to do anything else.Amid something you tried to remember for days, The fog suddenly liftedThe haze is gone from your mind, And its no so much that your memory finally heededJust that you gave up, Needing to need itHey, the fog has gone, Hey, the fog has goneIts time for you to come out, There's no longer a reason to die And something is over, something else beginsThe end of the century is coming Like a blind woman relentlessly spinningBut before its sewed shutYou wanted to scream,"Hold on just a minute, was this just a dream?Or is there something to learnBesides who got the gold,And who's been losing and winning?But the century's a man-made process,An attempt to stick order on chaosWe're born with ten fingers, So we count up to ten, But if everyone counted the cracks on the wall, Yeah, we'd count up to three, and then it wouldn't be The end of the century at allHey, the fog has goneHey hey, the fog has goneIt showed signs early todayI knew when I woke in my bedThat something was going onThrow up the window, I want to scream out your nameHey hey, the fog has goneHey hey, the fog has goneC'mon, we'll drive up the coastIts a Tuesday and ThursdayI can't remember, and I don't careWe'll drive to Seattle Or else OklahomaOr else if we wannaA boat to HawaiiOr maybe Japan with the kings of karaokeCome out!Come on out now girl, you've gotta come out!Maybe the only thing jumping in the car and driving can get us isan empty tank of gasYeah, but it sure beats sitting around hereMaybe we'll be lucky, find our own private river valley,or at least an all-night diner where they know how to poach and eggMaybe we'll meet some nice people along the way,and anyway, you knowI'll never leave youYou know I'll never leave you

C'était les paroles de Lithuania
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