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Leonard Cohen's Light [1]
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Date: 2025-04-07
I recently went to a mid-Jutland village (population 15) to hear a Canadian musician. The concert was in Tåning's forsamlingshus, one of Denmark's local assembly halls where citizens gather for cultural events, often including a shared meal.
What attracted 150 of us grey-haired folks to Tåning's forsamlingshus, was the music of the late Leonard Cohen, and with the single exception of me and the principal performer, Gary Snider, everybody was Danish. I cringed when Canadian Snider told the audience: "Good news! My homeland is still independent, not yet the 51st state of America!" Hah hah!
Øv! I thought. More Trump arrogance to embarrass me.
It's easy to compare Leonard Cohen to Bob Dylan, and many do. Both are poets whose music has often been performed better by others than themselves. Dylan's lyrics are about politics and Cohen wrote about the fragility and complexity of sexual love. Both men are culturally Jewish, yet Cohen used Christian themes in his work and lived for several years as a Buddhist monk. Dylan doesn't use religious themes while Cohen infuses many of his lyrics with religious references, such as we hear in his most famous , Hallelujah.
Canadian, Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) was never as well known in America as he was in Europe. I didn't know his music before I emigrated and discovered him at a literary festival in Wales by the name of: "How the light gets in." Research on this unusual name led me to Cohen and I wondered how I'd lived so long without him.
As I sat among the Tåning residents that evening, I wondered what they were hearing in Cohen's songs. Snider sang them all: Ain't No Cure for Love; Suzanne, famous for "touching her perfect body with his mind;" So Long, Marianne - a favorite since Norwegian Marianne Stang Ihlen was a "Scandinavian cousin" with whom Cohen lived for many years; Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye; Bird on the Wire; Famous Blue Raincoat; Dance Me to the End of Love; Tower of Song; Sisters of Mercy; Everybody Knows; If It Be Your Will; and Tower of Song.
I kept waiting to hear Anthem and Hallelujah and he finally delivered. I'd gone to this concert looking for spiritual ideas to comfort me. I got what I came for. Cohen's thoughts had a restorative effect. His words were salve to my soul.
Like many expat Americans these days, I'm suffering. Trump's embarrassing policies are dangerous, and I always feel ashamed when Danes comment on my American accent. I went to Tåning needing to be reminded that salvation is possible; that hope is there ... if we only look for it.
Where is it? Look for the cracks. That's how the light gets in.
“Ring the bells that still can ring” is a call to action. Hearing Anthem restored my hope and prepared me for the Hands Off! demonstrations the next day when 1,400 locations across all 50 U.S. states drew an estimated 3 million participants nationwide: There they were: the cracks. Three million of them.
Resistance: that's how the light gets in.
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