Future Legend
1974 song by David Bowie
"Future Legend" is the opening track of David Bowie's 1974 album Diamond Dogs. Its spoken narrative introduces the album's setting in a "glitter apocalypse".
01Music and lyrics
Barely a minute in length, "Future Legend" begins with a distorted howl and features Bowie's spoken-word vision of a post-apocalyptic Manhattan, now renamed Hunger City. He describes "fleas the size of rats" and "rats the size of cats", and compares the humanoid inhabitants to "packs of dogs".
Halfway through the narration, the Richard Rodgers' tune "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" strikes up, the song and its composer appear on the track list of the original vinyl album but this credit is omitted on CD releases (with the exception of the first one made in West Germany for the European market in 1984). "Future Legend" then transitions into the album's title track with the cry, "This ain't rock and roll. This is genocide!"
The narrative has been compared to the writings of William Burroughs, particularly such phrases as "a baying pack of people" in Naked Lunch.
02Other uses
A backing tape of the track was played as the lead-in to "Diamond Dogs" at some performances on Bowie's North American tour in 1974.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Future Legend”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.