The great rebbe

Yesterday I had the huge pleasure of watching Leonard Cohen in concert for the second time this year.

Sitting here now coming down from the high – of the man, his music and his musicians – several impressions are jumbled around in my head.

The beauty of his voice and his re-interpretation of his own poetry. The early songs, especially Bird on a Wire, sounded freshly minted, as if I’d never really heard the words before:

Like a baby, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.

But perhaps that makes it all sound too solemn. The guy is a showman: funny, tender, sharp and ironic. The boulevardier giving us a mocking version of I’m Your Man has a light touch in repartee. There was fun and energy: for his (well-planned) encores he skipped on and off the stage like a six-year-old. The programme notes describe him as “…this godfather and grandfather – a mystic in a gangster’s hat…” and they’re not wrong.

You know what my overriding impression was? That going to church should be like this!

The Cohen concert was sacred territory. He took us from laughter to tears and back again; he used sexual, political and biblical imagery in ways that seemed new and fresh. Cohen the Jew, the Buddhist, the poet, musician, lover and monk spoke intimately and individually to audiences of thousands.

I can scarcely pick out all the highlights, but you know me, I’m going to try!

The song Anthem, with its haunting refrain:

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

His subterranean voice without music reading his poem Thousand Kisses Deep, in a silence that defied the dropping of even the tiniest pin:

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second-hand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

The upbeat Democracy, whose refrain “Democracy is coming to the U.S.A”  took on a whole new post-November meaning which brought screams of delight from the crowd:

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

Or his complete and unassailable reclamation of perhaps his greatest song, as he roared and whispered his way through Hallelujah:

I did my best, it wasn’t much.
I couldn’t feel, so I learned to touch.
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you.
Yes even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah.

He did his best and it was electrifying.

I’ve been trawling YouTube for snippets that might give you some idea of how special this sacred space was. The video below is not quite perfect as it ends too soon, but others I found were blurry. This contains the best rendition I can find of a quiet and reverent piece which is now staying with me more than anything else: Cohen speaking his poem/prayer If It Be Your Will, the words of which are then taken up and sung with simple beauty by two of his musicians, the Webb Sisters.

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it will be your will
To let me sing

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