Leonard Cohen - The Future [Official Music Video]

The OFFICIAL video clip for "The Future", single from the 1992 album of the same name.

(c) 1993 SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (Canada)

IMPORTANT NOTE: There's an INTENTIONAL "censorship" of words "crack" and "anal sex" to further underline the song's contents. This was made probably by Cohen himself, and in any case, it's present in the ORIGINAL video clip - my copy comes from the official The Future press kit.

Cohen himself sings "careless sex" instead of "anal sex" - in 1993 tour, he was doing so when the concerts were broadcasted, in 2008-2010 tour, he's singing "careless sex" constantly on every single show (except in two late 2010 shows in Europe).

NOTE: The video follows *radio edit* version. The single version was shortened from 6:41 to 4:53, shortening chorus (REPENT lines), omitting the verse starting with line "Your servant here", and in the end, by omitting the repeated first verse and shortened chorus (you can clearly hear the cut before the last chorus, at 4:01). Omitted verses are in [brackets].


THE FUTURE
Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture

Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

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.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
[When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant]

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little Jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival

[Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder]

Things are going to slide ...

There'll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing

You'll see your woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'

[Give me back the Berlin Wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder]

Things are going to slide ...

When they said REPENT REPENT ...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Leonard_Cohen
• The_Future
• Music
• Video
• Clip

[pixiniarts]

Bleeping this song is like painting a black box over tits in a classical art exhibition.... By trying to make it less offensive all you end up doing is making it a statement of your ignorance and arrogance and a desire to control what people think and see which is even more obscene.

And don't give me that shit about 'protecting kids' when they are killing every night in realistic combat games and watching burning people tumble out of tanks or watching Hiroshima being vaporized on Discovery.

[bearjewlp]

Whoever bleeped out CRACK AND ANAL SEX needs to be shot.

[mistressireland]

Censorship can go fuck itself. Gimme sum crack and anal sex now!

[lucasboden]

The censorship makes it sound like Cock and Anal Sex...lol.

[Twysted666]

@pixiniarts AGREED!

[burpo]

@pixiniarts Don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of censorship. I'm just saying that this merely... makes the point even more obvious.

[pixiniarts]

@burpo If SOPA turned had turned the internet into a thousand red bordered pages of seized websites it certainly would 'emphasize menace' too, the censoring of this song and these laws come from the same place and thinking.

Censorship like this should never be trusted or tolerated, this so called 'family orientated' sterilizing censorship serves only to appease lawyers and corporations and is merely one more form of interference and control.

[burpo]

@pixiniarts Funny, I think the "bleeps" merely emphasize the menace that the song describes.

[jeithorpe]

Whoever the cunt is that censored this should have a tree stuffed up the crack in his soul. Or something else that hurts a lot.

[fourayes]

I got Leonard's woman, somehow.

[matthewme23]

@TheGrungy1 -didn't even make it that far into ~ 'the future'...once it got bleeped out it lost all it's meaning and intent! UGH! 'Give me absolute control'...does the person who uploaded this even get the meaning of this song?!

[matthewme23]

WHY DID YOU BLEEPIN' CENSOR THIS?! ARGH! I HATE CENSORSHIP IN ART AND MUSIC! FAIL!!!