2016-11-17: The Future

In honour of last week's passing of the late, great Leonard Cohen, we exhumed our sunsetted arrangement of his apocalyptic ballad "The Future" for your viewing enjoyment via another installment of our sporadic video series. (Hey, while we weren't paying attention, our take on "Born Slippy" popped, with over a thousand views! Thank you everybody, we agree: it is most excellent. But it is not what we are here to discuss today.)

This was one of the very first (the kazoo is a dead giveaway... originally scat, but that attempt was better left unshared) song arrangements the Planks made (as opposed to simply printing out such tabs as could be found online and hoping that they were semi-legit) and its pacing shifts were inspired by the various klezmer rhythms we were formally exposed to while learning the songs for Melinda Gidaly's "Jew! A Musical" at the Fringe Festival (gulp) eleven years ago.

What with the morose synths and the somber female vocal section intoning "doo doo doo!" soulfully, we felt that the original was elegiac... but what the world needed at that moment was a barn-burner, with the feel that "if the world is coming to an end, let's see it out with one hell of a party!"

Whether we were successful or not is up for some debate, with one friend perplexedly inquiring after witnessing an early set if my musical aspirations really were set on doing Leonard Cohen covers as Cookie Monster? Well... that sounds at least as viable as Macaulay Culkin's Pizza Underground!

If you like, you can hear us perform this song live tomorrow night (!) at the Accordion Noir 10th anniversary cabaret!