I rank The Future as one of Cohen's best releases, perhaps his best since his debut. I said that to a person I used to know. She was a big fan too, and she told me she didn't like this record! What? I still have a hard time understanding that. I'm Your Man was a big hit for Cohen, and I really loved that record, but there is a darkness to The Future that I find quite appealing. And yet, that darkness is often balanced by the light:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
And by the sexual mixed with the spiritual, as we have all come to expect from Cohen:
She stands before you naked
You can see it, you can taste it,
And she comes to you light as the breeze.
Now you can drink it or you can nurse it,
It don't matter how you worship
As long as you're
Down on your knees.
So I knelt there at the delta,
At the alpha and the omega,
At the cradle of the river and the seas.
And like a blessing come from heaven
For something like a second
I was healed and my heart
Was at ease
There's a a number of funny lines as well.
This record contains one of my favourite Cohen tunes, Democracy. I'd say that this track is the best thing Cohen put out in the post 1960-80s era. I even own two different CD singles featuring this tune (one is a promo). Democracy is a tour de force, filled with some visceral imagery and a subtle sense of humour. It's a verbal attack on American culture, though his love for the USA is also obvious. I remember the first time I heard this song, on a little boom box in a the bedroom where I was living in Toronto. I wanted to run to the living room and turn on the stereo for better sound, but I didn't want to miss the lyrics flowing past, and a lot of lyrics there are.
I've never owned the original pressing. This record came out when I was deep in compact discland. I have seen a couple of first vinyl pressings, but the prices were way too high and the condition was never good enough to warrant the expense.
The title track was originally titled, If You Could See What's Coming Next. Indeed, this was well before 9/11, and I think it's fair to say that no one saw that, and all the impending consequences and war, coming.
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St. Paul
I've seen the future, brother
It is murder
The above resonates with me especially today. George W. Bush, in contrast to Trump, seems totally reasonable and almost benign.
There are two cover tunes on the LP. I think that the only other cover tunes Cohen recorded, to this point, were The Partisan and The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien Errant). This LP also contains Cohen's first instrumental, which is a really a minor, though tranquil and quite enjoyable, piece.
I am also very fond of Closing Time, partly because I used to live close to Club Matador, where the video was filmed. There are some very funny and sensual lyrics in this tune.
Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing
But there's nothing really happening
And the place is dead as heaven on a Saturday night
And my very close companion
Gets me fumbling gets me laughing
She's a hundred but she's wearing
Something tight
And then there are these lyrics: "All the women tear their blouses off" and "And the cider's laced with acid." I could go on, but I won't. The Future is a masterwork, and perhaps his best record since his debut.
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