I learned something new this morning.
(Sorry this is so long, but I felt the need to share)
I've heard the song HALLELUJAH several ways, "the Christian version",
"the Christmas version", and Leonard Cohen's "original version". I
never liked the original, that's because I didn't understand what
Leonard Cohen was trying to say. This is part of an interview John
McKenna did with him where he explains it.
Leonard Cohen was
born into a Jewish family in Montreal in 1935 [actually, 1934]. Yet his
influences come also from the Catholic and Protestant communities of
that city. And perhaps its that cosmopolitan background that gives him
an intriguing angle, particularly on biblical history. In the song
Hallelujah, he draws on a wonderfully and subversively passionate
passage in the second book of Samuel. It happened towards evening when
David had risen from his couch and was strolling on the palace roof that
he saw from the roof a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful.
David made enquiries about this woman and was told 'why that is
Bethsheba, Allion's daughter, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.' Then David
sent messengers and had her brought. She came to him and he slept with
her. Now she had just purified herself from her courses. She then went
home again. The woman conceived and sent word to David - 'I am with
child'.
In the song there's the baffled king, David, and there's
the baffled singer, Leonard Cohen, in search of the lost chord that
certainly pleased the lord and might possibly please the woman. And
there's the original story too, reduced now to the domestic and physical
situation that it was and always is. Bethsheba may have broken the
throne, but she also tied David to a kitchen chair. Delilah did
something similar. There's more to be learned from the bible than God's
dealing with the human race. There's also the dealings of women with
men. There's the hard fact that nothing can be reconciled - at least not
here.
LC: Finally there's no conflict between things, finally
everything is reconciled but not where we live. This world is full of
conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled but there are
moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and
embrace the whole mess and that's what I mean by Hallelujah. That
regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a
moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you
embrace the thing and you just say 'Hallelujah! Blessed is the name.'
And you can't reconcile it in any other way except in that position of
total surrender, total affirmation.
JM: For those who'd label
Leonard Cohen a blind pessimist, there's the answer in the song
Hallelujah. The blaze of light in every word - which word is
unimportant. The belief that it doesn't matter if it all went wrong
because he still can stand before the lord of song. The acceptance that
in being able to change nothing we reach an understanding and can, like
David, say 'Hallelujah!'
LC : That's what it's all about. It says
that none of this - you're not going to be able to work this thing out -
you're not going to be able to set - this realm does not admit to
revolution - there's no solution to this mess. The only moment that you
can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts
is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say 'Look, I don't
understand a f****** thing at all - Hallelujah! That's the only moment
that we live here fully as human beings.
JM:.....There's Leonard Cohen, acknowledging that each of us is torn by what we've done and can't undo.
Wow, hearing his explanation changes everything. Now I get it. Hallelujah!
Here are the lyrics;
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
PS (I didn't include a link to the song
because Leonard Cohen has added and subtracted verses over the years and
so has many other people).
