On Leonard Cohen

David Williamson has an excellent post on Leonard Cohen: “Despair, lust and epiphany bleed together in Cohen’s canon….”

As for me, I doubt I’ve ever come across a more profound and more authentic reflection on faith than Cohen’s magnificent “Hallelujah” (1984):

Now maybe there’s a God above
But all I ever learned from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it’s no complaint you hear tonight
And it’s not some pilgrim who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a lonely 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
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah