Democracy

Democracy - context Summary

After Tiananmen, 1992

Published in 1992 in the collection The Future, Leonard Cohen’s poem Democracy links the image of Tiananmen Square to a broader meditation on American life, politics and faith. The poem repeatedly insists that Democracy is coming to the U.S.A., pairing public protest and social suffering with religious language and civic metaphor like the ship of state. Its context — global unrest and Cohen’s sustained engagement with social and spiritual questions — frames the refrain as both critique of the present and wary hope for moral and political renewal.

Read Complete Analyses

It's coming through a hole in the air, from those nights in Tiananmen Square. It's coming from the feel that it ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there. From the wars against disorder, from the sirens night and day, from the fires of the homeless, from the ashes of the gay: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming through a crack in the wall, on a visionary flood of alcohol; From the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount which I don't pretend to understand at all. It's coming from the silence on the dock of the bay, from the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming from the sorrow on the street the holy places where the races meet; From the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat. From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray for the grace of G-d in the desert here and the desert far away: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. Sail on, sail on o mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need past the Reefs of Greed through the Squalls of Hate. Sail on, sail on It's coming to America first, the cradle of the best and the worst. It's here they got the range and the machinery for change and it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken and it's here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming from the women and the men. O baby, we'll be making love again. We'll be going down so deep that the river's going to weep, and the mountain's going to shout Amen! It's coming to the tidal flood beneath the lunar sway, imperial, mysterious in amorous array: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. Sail on, sail on o mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need past the Reefs of Greed through the Squalls of Hate. Sail on, sail on I'm sentimental if you know what I mean: I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen. But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.