The Future
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- See also: Future
| The Future | ||
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| Studio album by Leonard Cohen | ||
| Released | November 1992 | |
| Recorded | January–June 1992 | |
| Genre | Folk-rock | |
| Length | 59:41 | |
| Label | Columbia Records | |
| Producer(s) | Leonard Cohen, Steve Lindsey, Bill Ginn, Leanne Ungar, Rebecca De Mornay, Yoav Goren | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Leonard Cohen chronology | ||
| I'm Your Man (1988) |
The Future (1992) |
Ten New Songs (2001) |
The Future is one of the most popular Leonard Cohen albums, and has come to be recognized as his essential "film-score" album. Nearly every one of the songs on the album has appeared in some notable form in a Hollywood film.
Most recognizable is the use of three songs ("Waiting for the Miracle", "Anthem", and the title track) in Oliver Stone's graphic 1994 film Natural Born Killers. Songs from this album have also appeared in the films Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas and The Life of David Gale starring Kevin Spacey.
Widely recognized as one of Cohen's more accessible albums, The Future contains everything from gospel-choir choruses (title track) to synthesizer ballads ("Waiting for the Miracle"), to pop-country ("Closing Time"), to marching band, staccato-like rhythms ("Democracy"). "Democracy" admittedly influenced the opening track of HBO's The Sopranos, "Woke up This Morning", written and performed by A3 and widely miscredited to Cohen.[citation needed]
While not his most commercially successful album internationally, The Future is definitely one of his most musically diverse outings. The album was, however, one of Cohen's biggest chart successes in his native Canada, where "Closing Time" and "The Future" were both significant Top 40 hits. Cohen, whose singing voice is famously an acquired taste, won the 1992 Juno Award for Best Male Vocalist. In his acceptance speech, he quipped that "only in Canada could I win a Best Vocalist award".
The Future was the last Cohen album to be recorded and produced entirely in analog and then digitised after mixdown. Its working titles were Busted (after the line from "Closing Time") and Be for Real. Its only known outtake, "Never Any Good", was released in 1997 on More Best of Leonard Cohen.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
Written by Cohen, except where noted.
- "The Future" – 6:34
- "Waiting for the Miracle" (Cohen/Sharon Robinson) – 7:43
- "Be for Real" (Frederick Knight) – 4:32
- "Closing Time" – 6:00
- "Anthem" – 6:09
- "Democracy" – 7:14
- "Light as the Breeze" – 7:17
- "Always" (Irving Berlin) – 8:04
- "Tacoma Trailer" – 5:57
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[edit] The Future
The title track describes a world permeated with imagery of death, murder and chaos. The song is written in the first person, but it is not clear whom the poet is meant to represent. It could just be an ordinary citizen living in the dystopian future, or it could be even the devil himself. In one cryptic line he/she claims to be "the little Jew who wrote the Bible." The key couplet in the chorus reads: "When they said REPENT, I wonder what they meant," which tends to make traditional judeo-Christian values, e.g. humility and mercy, seem quaint and irrelevant in such a violent world. The narrator longs for the tensions of the Cold War ("Give me Stalin and Saint Paul"), which he believes held the most monstrous human proclivities in check.
[edit] Waiting for the Miracle
In "Waiting for the Miracle" a man (the narrator, presumably Cohen himself) turns down the advances of a female due to his being preocupied with "waiting for the miracle." Ultimately, the narrator relents and proposes marriage to his female companion.
[edit] Be for Real
One of two covers on the album
[edit] Closing Time
A fast up tempo song which nominally describes the closing of a club or bar. The aforementioned title functions both as the song's refrain and also subtlety connotes the act of a man withdrawing from a woman's vagina.
[edit] Anthem
A slower number with Kabalistic undertones.[citation needed] This is the song with the well-known refrain, "Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in."
[edit] Democracy
Features the anticipatory refrain "Democracy is Coming to the USA." Here Cohen describes Democracy emanating from rather humble origins.
[edit] Light as the Breeze
Surprisingly explicit in its imagery for a Cohen recording, "Light as the Breeze" semi-metaphorically describes the act of cunnilingus.
[edit] Always
An eight-plus minute cover of an Irving Berlin song. The second of two covers on the album.
[edit] Tacoma Trailer
The final track is a purely instrumental number by Cohen. The first and only instrumental in the Cohen catalogue.
