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Palace of Tears

from Palace of Tears by Ray Cooper

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about

I used to visit the former East Germany to play music as a guest of the FDJ, the 'Free German Youth'. I have a lot of memories from those days; of a country so different from anywhere else I had been to, without advertising, almost without crime, but also without choice. I remember the people I met, when in July 1989 I had a holiday in East Berlin. Then I watched as the wave of history washed over them. There was a border control at Friedrichstrasse station, known as Der Tränenpalast, The Palace Of Tears.

lyrics

Palace of Tears
(Ray Cooper)

The steel gate shuts behind me
Like the bolt of a Russian gun
Part of the wall around us
That keeps us on the run
Well it cuts right through this city
It cuts right through my heart
It cuts right through this country
And keeps our worlds apart

Past the grey stone walls
Shattered by the marks of war
The tide mark of a century
So many died for
And the statues were silent
On that cold rainy day
Waiting for the cranes
To take them all away

I remember your flat in it's faded grandeur
You said that it suited you
Well it suited me too
I look back on those days with love and anger
That we never dared dream
We'd see the wall crashing down
And the world rushing in

We lay on the floor
With the double doors open
We didn't talk about time
Our love was unspoken
We knew that I would leave again tomorrow
You could never follow
We watched the rain coming down

You walked me back to the checkpoint
Back to the clamour
And the lights of the western world
And there by the sickle and the hammer
We said goodbye my dear
Like so many others here
At the Palace of Tears

Auf Wiedersehn mine hertz
We said goodbye at the Palace of Tears

Now the checkpoints are demolished
The city has survived
The losers and the winners
Just get on with their lives
If I talked about the good things
From the bad old days
You'd say it's nostalgia
And I don't understand the time that's gone to waste

You walked me back to the checkpoint
Back to the clamour
And the lights of the western world
And there by the sickle and the hammer
I said goodbye my dear
Like so many others here
At the Palace of Tears

credits

from Palace of Tears, released August 29, 2014

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Ray Cooper UK

Ray Cooper is a singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist currently residing in the depths of Sweden where he moved in 2000. He left Oysterband in 2013 after a year in which they picked up 3 BBC2 Folk Awards and appeared live on the "Later..with Jools Holland' show. Since then he has carved out a successful solo career.

Photo by Kerstin Maier ... more

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