Saturday, November 22, 2008

There is a crack in everything

Tonight I got to see half a Leonard Cohen live gig (when did he start to look so much like Tony Bennet?). Yeah, just half, and I've got the serious mutters with British Rail for robbing me of the other half, but that's for another time.

Leonard Cohen is, to my mind, a consummate lyricist, he can do with a few words what highly skilled visual artists can do with just a few lines or brushstrokes. Sublime. Tonight, as well as being surprised to discover that Leonard Cohen is actually both personable and funny, I heard a song that had somehow managed to escape me before, called Anthem from the Future, which contained some lyrics that struck a chord so deep in me as to be impossible to articulate.

It relates so much to the conversations we have in this space, but I feel as if I would make the whole thing rather trite by trying to explain how, so I will pay you the compliment of assuming you'll be able to make the connection for yourself, and insted just give you the lines:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
It reminds me of a badge my kids once gave me that says "Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light." I am very proud of that badge!

And here's the song in its entirety:

No comments: