Leonard Cohen: Song of destruction

Your lives to change? An oracle to speak? Some version of the wounded matador Who turns toward the bull his other cheek And entertains you with a torn physique? Some prisoner in pyjamas dancing lewd Trablinka waltzes, while another freak Hangs himself to concentrate your mood And sweeten up your putrid solitude? (Michael) My drummer is the only one I trust Let the drums go rolling through the night And let them pulverise my deep disgust With steady thunder, whips and dynamite The man of sticks and skins is always right. I found him near the cremetorium Humiliated, begging for a fight. I wrote the name of honour on a drum O drummer tell the people why I've come! O listen to him and his saxophone (Frank & Louis) Our musical genital unicorn (Michael) He's very well hung with his golden horn He'd like to be standing out here alone The light on his hands, his mouth, and his bone. (Frank & Louis) So take your solo now and loose your way In every fingered hole and brassy groan... You'll soon begin to choke on what you play (Michael) You're choking now exactly as I say! (Michael, Frank As for the deeper spirits in the hall & Louis) Annointed ones and truely different Whom orgy doesn't satisfy at all Who loathe the horizontal argument (Frank & Louis) It is to such as you that he was sent. (Michael) I understand the loyalties that insist You burn a child or shoot a president Or tattoo numbers on a woman's wrist I know the sorrow of the good idealist. It is to such as you that I was sent To speak directly to your deepest shame And light the fires of experiment And burn all hesitation in the flame -- I claim you now, I claim you in the name Of that which you have never done before And having done it never be the same. The victim shall be smitten on his sore. The haughty one shall have a visitor. (Michael, Frank We heard that drummer, do not think we missed & Louis) Your subtle derivation from the beat (Michael) Which I established with an iron fist A thousand years ago, a small deceit To be enlarged until you have complete Control of the mood and the atmosphere -- Your crooked time endangering my defeat -- Now all your instruments must disappear And on your traitor's face pursue your dark career!