Monday Music: Take this Waltz (Leonard Cohen)

April is National Poetry Month and today's Monday Music feature is Leonard Cohen's English translation of a Spanish poem. Pequeño vals Vienés (“Little Viennese Waltz”), is a poem by Frederico Garcia Lorca. Cohen professed that Lorca had a deep influence on his life. "Take this Waltz" is Cohen's rendition of Lorca's poem

 

-

Monday Music: Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen)

And then there's Leonard Cohen. During this political season, pundits abound. Political pundits overall have a very weak track record for telling us how things will play out, but no one is better than Leonard Cohen for telling us how it is.

-

-

Monday Music: Two from Regina Spektor

François Villon was a 15th century French poet who wrote in the vernacular from the margins of society, and who has influenced poets, playwrights, and musicians ever since. Arthur Rimbaud, Ezra Pound, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen, to name just a few, were influenced by Villon. Here is a beautiful rendition of "The Prayer of François Villon," by the Russian bard singer Bulat Okudzhava, sung by Regina Spektor. (Scroll down to read English translation, but first, just listen to the beautiful music)

And speaking of Leonard Cohen, just when I was beginning to think that his wonderful song, "Hallelujah" was being sung too much, here comes Regina Spektor with a must hear performance.

The Prayer of Francois Villon

by Bulat Okudzhava

(English Translation)

While yet the Earth is revolving,

While yet the daylight is broad,

Lord, pray, give everyone

Whatever they have in want:

Give the wise one more brilliance,

The coward a horse to flee,

Give the happy some money…

And don't forget about me.

While yet the Earth is revolving –

Lord, yours is the power!

Give those fighting for power

To rule however much they desire;

Give relief to the generous

At least until the eve;

Bestow upon Cain repentance…

And don't forget about me.

I believe: you can do anything;

In your wisdom I trust,

Just as a killed soldier believes

That he is in the paradise;

Just as every ear believes

To the quiet words of yours,

Just as we ourselves also believe

When we know not what we do!

O Lord, oh the Almighty,

O God mine green of eyes!

While yet the Earth is revolving,

Taken itself by the surprise,

While yet it has in sufficiency

Both the time and the heat,

Give everybody a little…

And don't forget about me.

(from http://lyricstranslate.com/en/prayer-francois-villon-prayer-francois-villon.html#ixzz52qIhIOkH)
-

Monday Music: Leonard Cohen

[This is a Monday Music post from 2013 that I am replaying today to honor Mr. Cohen who died last week. My friend, Jane Philips also posted a beautiful tribute sharing many of his words at Spiritually Speaking]

                "Everybody knows the deal is rotten

                Old black Joe’s still pickin' cotton

                For your ribbons and bows

                And everybody knows."

The best version of "Everybody Knows" that I've heard is from a live performance in London. I was dismayed to see that the video of that performance has been removed from You Tube. I was able to find the same video on the Chinese version of You Tube, Youku, but then I noticed difficulties in playback -- the video kept freezing up. Fortunately, I found the video yet again, this time with a server in Turkey.

Written in 1992, the song is relevant today. The second verse is especially poignant:

          Everybody knows that the boat is leaking

          Everybody knows that the captain lied

          Everybody got this broken feeling

          Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody Knows

By Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows that the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking

Everybody knows that the captain lied

Everybody got this broken feeling

Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long stem rose

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby

Everybody knows that you really do

Everybody knows that you've been faithful

Ah give or take a night or two

Everybody knows you've been discreet

But there were so many people you just had to meet

Without your clothes

And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never

Everybody knows that it's me or you

And everybody knows that you live forever

Ah when you've done a line or two

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old black Joe’s still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming

Everybody knows that it's moving fast

Everybody knows that the naked man and woman

Are just a shining artifact of the past

Everybody knows the scene is dead

But there's gonna be a meter on your bed

That will disclose

What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble

Everybody knows what you've been through

From the bloody cross on top of Calvary

To the beach of Malibu

Everybody knows it's coming apart

Take one last look at this sacred heart

Before it blows

And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

*

Monday Music: Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (André Rieu)

All are welcome, and everyone belongs! Sometimes Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is powerful because we are all "broken hallelujahs" celebrating life in the midst of joys as well as sorrows. Sometimes the song is powerful because we are all included, as André Rieu demonstrates here by including people with developmental disabilities in the orchestra. A beautiful sight in The Netherlands city of  Maastricht as all of the people in the audience join in as well, singing and swaying to the music.

Monday Music: A Broken (and beautiful) Hallelujah

Some of the purest and most authentic art arises from a place of pain, as is illustrated by Leonard Cohen's marvelous "Hallelujah" performed here by Lind, Nilsen, Fuentes, Holm. This song strikes a deep chord because we are all baffled kings singing broken hallelujahs.

Living Between the Times

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:

They are but broken lights of thee,

And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

                       ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

  From In Memoriam

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

                                                                         ~ Leonard Cohen

                                                                             From "Anthem"

Living Among the Dying

We have been hearing statements and arguments, seeing graphs and data, witnessing lots of hand-wringing lately about whether or not the church is dying. The truth is, so much of what we know is in the process of dying.  Many of our major institutions – government, banking, schools, churches – were born during the Industrial Revolution. We are living with 19th century institutions and have not yet figured out how to organize ourselves in the post-industrial age. Some will counter, "but the church is 2,000 years old." Well, yes, but not the "church" we have been accustomed to with the pews in the sanctuary, the Sunday School programs in the educational building, etc. I grew up as a Baptist, becoming accustomed to evangelistic sermons, calling for people to come down the aisle to make a decision not realizing that no one did church that way until about 200 years ago.  As an adult, I came to appreciate the stately and ancient liturgy found in “the one holy catholic and apostolic church” as expressed within the large stone edifices of Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. I found them to be a solid grounding in an ancient tradition, even as I realized that my attraction to that ancient form was a bit out of step with where society was moving.

But where is society moving? It is difficult to tell when you are living in between the times as we are today. When you look at the sweep of history, you can get a sense of what structures were needed for different stages of our social development. What served the hunter-gatherer tribes was not sufficient for the agrarian city-states as urban life became possible. The Roman Empire was one among many organizational structures that arose as civilization continued to advance toward a global as well as urban orientation. When the structures of the Roman Empire began to fail it took a few hundred years for that to happen. Even then, Augustine of Hippo felt compelled to write a treatise, City of God,  to explain that the end of the Roman Empire was not the end of the church (and that Christianity did not bring about the decline of Rome).  Eventually people saw that the end of the Empire was not the end of civilization either. People had to adjust their organizational structures. When the times change and structures are dying, it becomes necessary to reevaluate. Yet just as those living at the end of the hunter-gatherer period or at the end of the Roman Empire could not see that they were at the end of an age and heading toward another, neither can we fully grasp where we are or where we are going. "Aye, there's the rub," as the playwright who also lived during changing times said.

“Things Fall Apart”

There is a crisis in New York that is emblematic of the times. The Episcopal Church’s General Theological Seminary is undergoing a heart-rending conflict as faculty, who have by all accounts been faithful servants of the church and of academia, find themselves ousted from their positions in a struggle with their new dean. The conflict raises many questions about where theological education is headed, and whether current church structures are sustainable. People who held not just fond memories, but deep and meaningful connections with the worship and the grand and stately buildings at the seminary find themselves overcome with heartache and riddled with questions. “Things fall apart; the centre  cannot hold,” is the ominous phrase Yeats uses in “The Second Coming.” Life was not supposed to unfold this way. There was supposed to always be a center, a strong and reassuring ridgepole of security. Now people are even questioning the role of the church and the academy. Should we even be tied to buildings of mortar and creeds of old men? The world has scattered itself into a digital structure formed in cyberspace. We can all find our connections on the world-wide web. There is no longer a need for a physical cluster of buildings or a specific geographical area– so some may say.

Others will counter that we still need physical proximity, we still need solemn worship within a sacred space. We cannot become “commuter lackeys”– always moving, never settled– nor can we resign ourselves to becoming just a digital brick in the cyberspace wall. The problem is that neither camp really knows where we are. We do not have the benefit of hindsight nor the gift of looking back over the arc of posterity’s history. We are living it as we go along. 

Guided by Broken Lights

We will eventually figure out what kinds of institutions will serve us better in the current age, and the church will adapt, just as surely as it did in the Medieval Period and in the Industrial Period. It will be here, in some form. Moreover, our other societal institutions will die, adapt, and/or arise to meet the needs of society-as-it-is. For now, we can only try to live with compassion in a society that is at once clinging to the little systems that have had their day while at the same time flailing against the fabric of another time and place. When the system falls, when the center does not hold, then we at least have a chance to look toward the next window which will be but broken lights of that which we seek, but which will serve us well on our pilgrimage from here to there. 


___________________ 
Photo: The Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary in New York.
Credit              by Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

-

Democracy is Coming to the USA

For the Fourth of July holiday, I'm sharing words from Parker Palmer. He posted the Leonard Cohen video along with these words on his Facebook page:

As we celebrate the 4th of July, let's reflect on the fact that democracy is always a work in progress. A true celebration means recommitting ourselves to the work that needs doing if we want democracy to survive and thrive.

Here's some great music to start the celebration—Leonard Cohen's classic "Democracy", with its ironic but hopeful refrain, "Democracy is coming to the U.S.A."

I think America's Founders would have loved that line. It's in the same spirit as the opening words of the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."

The Founders got us off to a very imperfect start when they excluded everyone but white, male, landed gentry from "We the People." But they had the genius to create a form of government that gives us chance after chance to perfect ourselves by righting our wrongs.

Today, a "more perfect Union" includes embracing diversity; removing barriers to voting; making sure that the 16 million American kids who live in poverty have enough to eat; reducing the income gap and the power of big money to dominate our politics; etc. Yes, those are big jobs, but that's what it means to keep democracy coming to the U.S.A.

So on this 4th of July, let's talk with each other about doing whatever we can to fulfill the hopes in this song:

Sail on, sail on
Oh mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate.
Sail on, sail on

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.!

P.S. "There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country..." —WIlliam Sloane Coffin, Jr.

Monday Music: Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen)

                "Everybody knows the deal is rotten

                Old black Joe’s still pickin' cotton

                For your ribbons and bows

                And everybody knows."

The best version of "Everybody Knows" that I've heard is from a live performance in London. I was dismayed to see that the video of that performance has been removed from You Tube. I was able to find the same video on the Chinese version of You Tube, Youku, but then I noticed difficulties in playback -- the video kept freezing up. Fortunately, I found the video yet again, this time with a server in Turkey. Watch it today, it may be gone tomorrow! (We may have to keep bouncing around the globe to keep Cohen online!)

Everybody Knows

By Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows that the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking

Everybody knows that the captain lied

Everybody got this broken feeling

Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long stem rose

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby

Everybody knows that you really do

Everybody knows that you've been faithful

Ah give or take a night or two

Everybody knows you've been discreet

But there were so many people you just had to meet

Without your clothes

And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never

Everybody knows that it's me or you

And everybody knows that you live forever

Ah when you've done a line or two

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old black Joe’s still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming

Everybody knows that it's moving fast

Everybody knows that the naked man and woman

Are just a shining artifact of the past

Everybody knows the scene is dead

But there's gonna be a meter on your bed

That will disclose

What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble

Everybody knows what you've been through

From the bloody cross on top of Calvary

To the beach of Malibu

Everybody knows it's coming apart

Take one last look at this sacred heart

Before it blows

And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

*

Countdown to Bob Dylan's Birthday: Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen

I found an interesting article, written many years ago, comparing and contrasting the works of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. The essay in reference is titled "Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan: Poetry and the Popular Song" by Frank Davey:

"Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen represent two highly contrasting directions from which the attempt to restore significance and integrity of vision to the popular song can be made. Bob Dylan is the child runaway who became a professional songwriter by deliberate hard work, and whose emergence as a poet of some talent seems to have been accidental, almost as if he had unconsciously realized that good songs have to contain reasonably good lyric poetry. Leonard Cohen is a university-educated formalistic poet who has moved in an opposite direction with his recent discovery that a good lyric poem could equally be a good song. Dylan brings to poetry a spontaneity of rhythm and a resourcefulness in imagery that had long been qualities of American folk music, as in that of Huddie Ledbetter or of Dylan's own idol, Woodie Guthrie. Cohen takes to the poem as popular song a scholarly precision of language and an obsession for extemal form." Read the entire article here.

That's How the Light Gets In

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
- Leonard Cohen

One thing generally leads to another. In my last post I described Bob Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand” as beautifully poignant, rising to the level of poetry. With that description bouncing around in my head, it would naturally call to mind another artist whose words are beautifully poignant, rising to the level of poetry. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is quite remarkable and stands in a league of its own. When I heard this song on the radio, I had to find the lyrics and guitar cords so I could play it myself.

Thomas Gasey wrote an excellent essay about the song and its author in America which I highly recommend and certainly could not improve upon. (click here to read the full article). Gasey has this to say about the song:

"Hallelujah" does not end with neatly packaged answers. Instead it is content to stay with the rawness of an open wound, though allowing a sliver of hope to shine through. We can only hope if we can let loss run its course, without giving in to the compulsion to end its discomfort prematurely. There is a beauty in this kind of acceptance, a wisdom hidden in the knowledge that even when we suffer, there is still light. This illumination ennobles us even as we labor to find vindicating words and reasons. There is a transfiguring dimension to our struggles, because our nights are pierced by a divine light. We can learn to recognize hidden springs of water gushing from what seems to be only a desert.

Leonard Cohen reminds us how the light gets in. Maybe his words can help us to savor what is truly valuable in life. Below you can read the lyrics to “Hallelujah” and “Anthem,” and you’ll also see a YouTube link to Jeff Buckley’s rendition of Cohen’s song.


Hallelujah
by Leonard Cohen

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

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was 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


Anthem
by Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.