A Celebration of Life: Leith Ross’s ‘I Can See the Future’
Photo Credit: Universal Music Group
Image Description: The album cover for Leith Ross’ I Can See The Future. Ross plays an acoustic guitar over collaged images of a campfire, flowers, food, and other objects
“Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me
Not to take me home
It was simple, it was sweetness
It was good to know”
In the summer of 2021 through a viral tik-tok, these earnest and simple lyrics launched Leith Ross’ career. The song “We’ll Never Have Sex” is a love song dedicated to a lover who does not solely desire physical intimacy but the somber melody and past tense narration evokes a plea that this will be true for the speaker again. The song resonated with queer audiences, and Them, an online news magazine about queer news and pop culture, listed the song as one of, “Our 24 Favorite Songs by LGBTQ+ Artists in 2022”. In a recent press conference with Universal Music Group, Ross spoke about their queerness as both an identity and a political commitment. In this light, Ross’ plea is more than just a plea for a romantic relationship free from the pressure of physical intimacy, but also a plea for a kind of love that even surpasses the romantic. To Ross, queerness is not just about who you love but how you engage with your community and a commitment to collectivity.
Since then, Ross has continued to explore the importance of love beyond the romantic by focusing on love, grief, and how they take up space as a human in their communities. In their upcoming album I Can See The Future, Ross continues to focus on their interpersonal relationships but also expands their scope to explore how humanity is always collectively in community with each other. The album begins with the song “Greiving” and is bookended by “Grieving (Reprise)” on the second to last track. “Grieving” begins with an upbeat drum and a folksy, melodic violin that is impossible not to want to boogie to yet the opening lyric seems somber in nature: “I will never stop grieving who we are when we are young”. The contrast between the lyrics of the song and the instrumental atmosphere Ross creates seems to show the listener that the passage of time, grief, and loss are not bad things, but an inevitable part of the experience of loving and being loved. Later Ross sings, “I think I’ll love after I’m dead / And I’ll grieve when I’m alive”. To love after you’re dead, is to continue to care and commit to a collective future even if you’re not alive to witness it. This song sets the listener up to love fearlessly, which is a love that Ross encourages the listener to extend to the entire world.
“Greiving” thematically sets the tone for the album by encouraging the listener to love fearlessly despite the inevitability of loss, but the album closes with the song, “I Can See The Future”. “I Can See The Future” is not sung from Ross’ perspective but is about what the Earth will look like after humans are gone. The future is not bleak or apocalyptic but, “Flowers, flowers, flowers grow / In the brick and the stone / Of the prisons and roads.” Ross constructs a vision of the future where the Earth is once again overtaken with nature where man-made structures and institutions once dominated the landscape. Only once the land grows back does Ross sing about the human communities that they imagine for the future, but they are integrated into the natural world. They sing, “How it, how it, how it / Shows in the warmth of the arms / Of the mothers and sons / And the winter still comes” Despite the profound lyrics, “I Can See The Future” is upbeat, light, and joyful. Ross creates a sonic landscape that envelopes the listener into a post-apocalyptic dance party that celebrates the collective future that we are all capable of creating.
Ross says that I Can See The Future is political in nature and acts as a manifestation for a better future, a future that we can build together. While “We’ll Never Have Sex” begins to explore love outside of physical intimacy, Ross’ new album expands these ideas to encompass a kind of love dedicated to larger communities and even the Earth itself. Ross spoke in the Universal Music Group press conference about how queerness for them is beyond their romantic relationships but an anti-capitalist political practice. Ross talks about how their queerness helps them approach their community from an anti-capitalist framework. Through their music, Ross explores what community can look like outside of capitalism. Capitalism encourages individuals to center their romantic relationships, nuclear families, and reproduction but Ross emboldens us all to imagine relationships and networks of care that extend beyond reproduction. This includes care for the planet and the ability to imagine a collective future where humans can live in harmony with one another and with the Earth. The desire for community beyond capitalism echoes throughout Ross’ entire discography and truly comes to fruition with, I Can See The Future.
I Can See The Future is currently streaming wherever you get your music!
