MEMORY OF THE FUTURE

Sudden Love    (Eric Andersen)   [Albums: Memory of the Future]

I saw you travellin in the north
Your smile so clean and young
Standing tall and green and slender like a sunflower on the sun
We walked up to each other
You handed me a flower
You asked me would I stay with you for a lifetime or an hour

Sudden love a sudden spark a memory burns
The fire starts you stopped the dark
When you came in sight
You cut the darkness into light

Then one day it happened love plays its little game
The air was green with jealousy it was the month of May
We hired out every extra to even up the cast
I saw the curtain fallin down right across my past

Sudden love can fall apart
When shadows fall across a heart you blew out the flame
When I turned to part you cut the light into the dark

If it ever comes one is left behind
Always the let the fact be known love is sometimes kind
Don't forget about the girl in the long blue dress

And the man who sang his song
That day that day when love was blessed
Sudden love a sudden spark a memory flares up in the stars

You took the dark when you came in sight
You cut the darkness into light
You cut the darkness into light

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Foghorn   (Eric Andersen)   [Albums: Memory of the Future]

The harbor horns blow in the night mist
warnin ships to keep their distance
no ice or fog can freeze this bed of tears
I know I ain't goin anywhere
my only mission is a prayer
that every thought of you could disappear

There's a foghorn blowin for the lost
it could be singin just for us
a lighthouse searches in the dark
while sea-bells toll the deep
they cannot warn or catch the tide that's taken you and me
if I flew like a seagull I'd fly down like a thief
if crime was light I'd kill the night let every wave go free

I'm listening while the rain is fallin
is there anybody callin
an echo that the rain forgot to place
did I have somethin of your heart
a shred time could not tear apart
time that skinny thief without a face
I see my face inside the mrror
is there anybody there
someone I remember from the past
someone I left by the trail lookin for the holy grail
I promised him one day I would come back

I see the light fall through the leaves
it takes its leave of you and me
time takes all that we forget to keep
the future holds a grain of truth
scorns the past as slaves of youth
but the future cannot form one memory
I'm lookin for my solitude
something good and make it new
something I have never tried befre
show my face and thanks to you
open hearts and gratitude
turn the knob when someone's at the door

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Rain Falls Down In Amsterdam   (Eric Andersen)   [Albums: Memory of the Future]

The rain falls down in Amsterdam the streets are wet and black
Midnights like November by the glow of a cigarette
The girls on hash in station square looking stupid from the drugs
When Marlene heard the boots march there were reasons to be dumb
Shiny helmuts in the shadows
Those trains that left at night
Those hiding in the cellars those eyes afraid of light
Something neath the border's poured poison in the well
The creature has uncoiled and is crawling up from hell

Here comes 1914 1932
Those cattle cars and yellow stars
It's right back to the roots
It's movin in the open with a snarl and a growl
The cages have been broken and the beast is on the prowl

Fire bomb those houses burn those refugees
Be the crowd and do your work
Applauding silently round up all the gypsies
Go sell them on the trains
Can't you smell the smoke now
Drifting through the rain
Jews better draw your curtains
You better lock your doors up tight
They're snarling up in Rostock in the beer hall belly nights
The Fourth Reich's coming now baby
They're writing out the page in Rome, Berlin, and Stockholm
The beast has left the cage

Here comes 1932 here comes deja vu
Those cattle cars  and yellow stars
Was there someone that you knew
It's right there in the open somethings smelling bad
The cages have been broken and the beast is a running mad

Those canals and cozy houses
Those reflections in the light
You can almost feel it moving
The monster in the night
It's looking with it's yellow eyes
It's out to settle scores in the dim medieval distance
Feel it breathing down your pores
In Salt Lake City and in Rio
The beast can smell the flames
It's faxing hate out in Marseilles typing out your name
You can hear the windows shatter as the time is drawing near
Kristall Nacht come to town
Welcome back to the house of mirrors

The fire and the armbands and the iron arm salutes
Pointing to the scapegoat was it me or was it you
It's right there in the open
Don't just stand there hoping
the leashes have been broken
And the dogs are on the loose

Now I have been here thinking how lucky I have been
I never touched the barb wire never saw the money grin
No rifle ever smashed my face no bare electric shock
But I'll confess up
All I know who I am and who I'm not
To see retired killers is to see the lion yawn
The skinheads do their dirtywork for the cloak and dagger pawns
The dark eyes will be waiting there
When the borders they are crossed
So keep your filthy swastikas and shove your iron cross

Here comes 1914 1932
Those cattle cars and yellow stars
It's right back to the roots
It's out there in the open
It's crawling on the move
The cages have been broken and the beast is on the loose
Can't you smell the blood now
Can't you smell the truth

And the rain falls down in Amsterdam

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Sex with you    (Eric Andersen)   [Albums: Memory of the Future]

Sex with you is beautiful
the best I’ve ever known
hands that flow along the air
like streams over a stone
the crack I saw that broke the sky
showed me where I fell
that place you touched somewhere in me
you saw but could not tell
you took my hands along your skin
and pressed them to your breast
til every line between us disappeared at last
curse the chains of loneliness
and the roads that don’t look back
take me to that avenue
where you put me on the track

If we are the sum of all what’s you and me
then this is the one I won’t forget
if there was a mouth, a kiss, a heart
before we even knew
then we must have touched before we even met

Don’t think of life’s destructiveness
how far the dark can reach
help me off this bed of nails
we know what it can teach
the blades of time can cut the lie
that skin is never blessed
that lie was made up by a priest with nothing to confess
the tears are rolling down his cheek
they’ll never blur the pain
like steam around an engine can never hide the rain
I see the smoke rise in your voice
it drifts without a sound
the flames they reach up in your eyes
as they burn me to the ground

If we are the sum of all what’s you and me
then this is the one I won’t forget
if there was a mouth, a kiss, a heart
before we even knew
then we must have touched before we even met

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All songs by Eric Andersen except where noted.
© Wind and Sand Music

Return to the Eric Andersen Page.
Last revised: Jan 2007.