Testo Lithuania - Dan Bern
Testo della canzone Lithuania (Dan Bern), tratta dall'album The Swastika E.P.
I'd like to be a good American and write an elegy to the automobile
No matter where it takes me I don't really feel any different
I got one foot in the black and white
Two-dimensional ghost of Lithuania
And the other foot in sunny California
Where the people are all friendly
As they drive their Mercedes to the mini-mall
Or take a lunch with you or network with you
Or drive past and kill you for no reason
These are my ghosts
Uncle Emmanuel, Uncle Eli, Aunt Mia
And my grandparents, Jenny and Tobias
None of whom I've ever met
I saw some letters once that they wrote to my dad in Palestine
In 1940 not too long before they all were shot
My only link to them was my dad
He knew them and he knew me and now he's gone too
I sometimes want to get next to them
Sometimes I want to drive them all 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 far west as anyone can drive
Eight thousand miles from Lithuania
And if I could escape by driving further then I would
But it doesn't get me anyplace new
I guess if I was a true American
I could write an elegy to the automobile
But when I jump in
It doesn't get me anyplace different
Sometimes I want to dance on Hitler's grave
And shout out Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce
Leonard Cohen, Philip Roth, Bob Dylan
Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein
Harry Houdini, Sandy Koufax
And then I want to sing as loud as I can
Watch the chandelier sway dangerously overhead
Proclaiming Kristallnacht is over
I say Kristallnacht is over
The only broken glass tonight
Will be from wedding glasses shattered under boot heels
We're not the ones in the museum
It's you
Your curious mustache in the chamber of horrors
I have a friend my age
Whose parents met in Auschwitz on the day of liberation
She lives in San Francisco
Has a good job, just moved into a new house
I have a friend who lies in her hospital bed
After fifteen operations from a botched appendectomy
I go to visit her with a heart heavy
From the things on my mind as she cheers me up
I saw my dad tell jokes
Teach me how to laugh
Thirty years after his parents, brother, sister
Were all shot, murdered in the streets of Lithuania
I see trees growing tall and the sun coming up
The ocean roaring home and I know I must go on
I must go on
It would be cowardly to stop
It would be an aberration to do anything else
And it's something you try to remember for days
The fog has suddenly lifted
The haze has gone from your mind
And it's not so much that your memory finally heeded
But that you gave up needing to need it
Hey, hey, the fog is gone
Hey, hey, the fog is gone
It's time for you to come out
No longer reason to doubt
When something is overThe end of the century's coming
Like a blind woman relentlessly spinning
But before it's on shut you wanted to scream
Hold on just a minute, was this just a dream?
Or is there something to learn besides who got the gold
And who's been losing and winning?
But a century's a man-made process
An attempt to stick order on chaos
We're born with ten fingers so we count up to ten
But if everyone counted the cracks on the wall
We might all count to three and then it wouldn't be
The end of the century at all
Hey, hey, the fog has gone
Hey, hey, the fog has gone
So it stands early today
I knew when I woke in my bed
That something was going on
Throw up the window, I'll scream out your name
Hey, hey, the fog has gone
Hey, hey, the fog has gone
Come on, we'll drive up the coast
It's a Tuesday or Thursday but I can't remember
And I don't care
We'll drive to Seattle or else Oklahoma
Or else if we wanna a boat to Hawaii
Or maybe Japan where the kings of karaoke come out
Come on out, girl
You gotta come out now
Maybe the only thing jumping in the car and driving can get us
Is an empty tank of gas
It'd sure beat sitting around here
Maybe we'll get lucky and find our own private river valley
At least an all-night diner where they know how to poach an egg
Maybe we'll meet some good people on the way
And anyway
You know I'll never leave you
I'll never leave you
I'll never leave you
Credits
Writer(s): Dan Bern
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