First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

My subconscious has this strange habit of putting a song on repeat in my mind until conscious me figures out why. Usually it's trivial little things that mostly strictly relate to my personal life. But for weeks now Leonard Cohen's First we take Manhattan is stuck in my mind and I just can't seem to find a personal connection in the lyrics and it's starting to freak me out.

I am beginning to think it's not about me at all but related to world events. And now those two false missile alerts in Hawaii and Japan. Could it be that after 9/11 in 2001 the second shoe is gonna drop on Berlin in 2018?


About the song:

The song's oblique lyric is suggestive of religious and end time themes with references to prayer, meaningful birthmarks and signs in the sky. Ben Hewitt writing for The Guardian in 2015 drew attention to the lyric's apocalyptic nature, imagining Cohen "greedily eyeing world domination like a Bond villain".[1] Rolling Stone magazine's Mikal Gilmore similarly described the song as a threatening vision of "social collapse and a terrorist's revenge".[2] The Daily Telegraph's Robert Sandall likewise observed the prophetic character of the song, but emphasized the song's political statement, placing it in the context of the last days of the Soviet Union.[3]

Cohen explained himself in a backstage interview:[4] "I think it means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song. I think it's a response to terrorism. There's something about terrorism that I've always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane – I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I'll give you a paraphrase of it. It was 'well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there', he says. 'But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking.'"

link (Wikipedia)





Beginning of the lyrics

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

a great poet. I've had Democracy on my mind for a couple of weeks. very appropriate, as well.

Democracy

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

Didn't even watch the video... so stuck in my head anyway now.

Great song.

And a scart interpretation.