Leonard Cohen - The Future (Official Music Video)

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a1000kissesdeep
November 04, 2008

The official video clip for "The Future", lead single from the 1992 album of the same name. The clip was released in 1993. (c) 1993 SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (Canada)

"A pessimist is someone who is waiting for it to rain. But I'm already soaked to the skin.", said Cohen in 1993. And that's exactly what this apocalyptic video shows - Cohen soaked to the skin, doing a "white man's dance" in his hotel room, in the rain.

In the mirror, you can see his back-up singers Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla.

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)

Also: there's an INTENTIONAL "censorship" of words "crack" and "anal sex" to further underline the song's content. This was made probably by Cohen himself, in any case, it's present in the ORIGINAL video clip - my copy comes from the official The Future press kit. During 1993 tour, Cohen sang "careless sex" when he knew that the concert was broadcasted, otherwise he sung "anal sex". In 2008 and 2009, he's singing "careless sex" constantly.

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 ...

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