How many ways can we open our hearts today? Here is one way:
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
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
~Leonard Cohen~
This is one of my ALL TIME favorite songs! Thank you for posting the lyrics. Hallelujah! Halle-luuuuuu-jah.
I love, love, love this song too Marie and Leonard Cohen. I had not actually looked deeply at the whole of the lyrics before but I see now that it’s very spiritual but it’s also quite sexy or else I’m proving where my mind is right now :)
Ah, one of my most favorite songs of my life (and I’m 61). And I love the way Leonard Cohen sings it. And I have it on CD — which I am going to play right now. :-) Hope you have a good day. Love this blog. Fran
Thank you so much Fran! Yes, I have him singing it on my iTunes, too. It’s a song that’s been covered a lot but I always come back to LC singing it.
It is my understanding, based on research from ‘experts’ (I’ve been studying religions, mysticism and theology for decades), that spiritual women are highly sexual and sensual women. For instance, St. Teresa of Avila, one of the only two women doctors in The Roman Catholic Church. Me, too. One of my cats is eating plastic. I have to go. :-) Fran
LOL, you are funny too! Interesting, if not for the diversion of cat eating plastic, we just might have had some juicy details :)
I’d be ashamed to tell you how long it took me to discover this, but it finally dawned on me that, since the beginning of the written word, all of the mystics of all the mainsteam and quasi-mainstream religions (including Quaker), whether they be Eastern or Western religions, had very similar mystical experiences AND they sometimes used the exact same words in their written description of their experience. Mystics, who were separated by time (sometimes hundreds of years), distance (different countries/ethnic backgrounds), and their particular religion. And most of the language was sexual, sometimes blatantly (like Teresa of Avila — ever seen Bernini’s painting of Teresa in ecstacy — she’s having an orgasm — and that painting came from her written descriptions of her spiritual ecstacies). None of this was not my projection. And then it hit me — of course, why should that not be? Certainly there are things in the world and in our universe that are ‘asexual’ (and they do not need to be fertilized to reproduce). But for the overwhelming majority of things, including human beings, one thing has to be united to another thing to reproduce/to procreate/to sustain themselves. When it comes to us and to other animals, we call it ‘sex’. But the whole world and the whole universe is ‘sexual’. The vast majority of it. Some (male) saint once said that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. I don’t think that means we have to ‘go at it’ like rabbits. But, from experience, my own and others, I do think it means that we are aware of and celebrate our sexuality, even if we chose to be celibate. A Jungian psychologist, who was very spiritual and spent decades in the East (and who never married, by the way), said that our deepest and most real experience of God is when we fall/grow in love with another. Especially when we make love. I just don’t see how sexuality and spiritually can be separated — I’m pretty certain that they are not separate at all. I think Leonard Cohen knows that too. I think it’s one of the reasons why he left the Zen monastery. And have you ever heard “Suzanne”? Hope this makes some sense. It was just off the top of my head. [My cat — who is bigger and prettier than I will ever be — decided it did not want to be joined to the plastic. Good thing. Vets are very expensive. :-) ]
Love this rampage on the central role of sex and sensuality! I did not know Leonard Cohen was part of a Zen monastery. I do know Suzanne. My introduction to Leonard Cohen was via Judy Collins. I used to have about a half dozen of her albums and several of her ballads were written by LC.
Yes, cats typically are not the swallowers of plastic things. Dogs are another story, though. If you ask my cats, they would tell you they rule and dogs drool. We love them both here :)
Hi-
Amazingly, I was just listening to Rufus Wainwright sing this on a CD called “Lifted”! It’s a favorite of mine. Thanks for putting it out there.
Paula
I love these synchronicities, Paula. They always remind me how much we are answered, known, heard and loved. Welcome to my blog, I hope you enjoy it! Bethie