“The Dream Before” contains the iconic phrase “history is an angel being blown backwards into the future” and further references and quotes Walter Benjamin’s musing on Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus, the ninth of Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History.
Hansel and Gretel are alive and well
And they're living in Berlin
She is a cocktail waitress
He had a part in a Fassbinder film
And they sit around at night now
Drinking schnapps and gin
And she says, 'Hansel, you're really bringing me down.'
And he says, 'Gretel, you can really be a bitch.'
He says, I've wasted my life on our stupid legend
When my one and only love was the wicked witch
She said, What is history?
And he said, History is an angel
Being blown
Backwards
Into the future
He said: History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel
Backwards
Into the future
And this storm, this storm
Is called
Progress
The Dream Before was written by Laurie Anderson.
The Dream Before was produced by Laurie Anderson & Roma Baran & Ian Ritchie.
Laurie Anderson released The Dream Before on Tue Oct 24 1989.