LEONARD COHEN SEES THE FUTURE

"It is Murder," the Song Goes. A 1992 Interview.

“I've Been Talking About This Catastrophe for a Long Time"

My favorite Leonard Cohen album has always been The Future (1992).  It was his darkest, until the threat-fulfillment You Want It Darker, which was released just before his death. I wrote about the title song to that 2016 album, with its invocation of "hineni," which means "Here I am, Lord," for the Forward's list of the 150 greatest Jewish pop songs. It was No. 2, followed only by Bob Dylan's puckish take on Abraham's intended sacrifice of his son Isaac, the title song of Highway 61 Revisited. The old, weird America of folk song is no match for the weird Old Testament.

The Future has reinforced relevance now, as war envelopes Eastern Europe, especially in a handful of songs, and America's  democratic values are tested as never before. "Democracy" features the line "Democracy is coming to the U.S.A." It was kind of humorous then. This visionary Canadian songwriter explains why the then-recent fall of the Berlin Wall would not me…