Lost Spectacles, by Leonard Cohen

He’s in his 70s now and his voice is ravaged, but he remains one of the best poet-songwriters I know, if not THE best. My favorite birthday gift ever was his Book of Longing. I spent weeks with it, thought about it, even dreamed about it. Beautiful words artfully strung together.

Like most poets, he’s self-absorbed to the max, and actually, I could write about his interesting (and self-centered) life. But I want to talk about that lyric, which is counter-intuitive in a world in which perfection is everything.

But what do we learn, really, from perfection? “Nothing,” says Cohen, and I agree.

When things go wrong in our lives, we’re given an opportunity to grow. We can take it. Or we can ignore it, try to cover it up, white it out, make it disappear.

First Snow, by Leonard Cohen

From an interview with Cohen:

There is always something that will have to break. Usually it is our personal pride. A Buddhist thinker said that disappointment is a great way to illumination. Other masters said: “from the broken debris of my heart I will erect an altar to the Lord”.

The idea that there is a staircase of gold and marble which leads to knowledge is seductive, but seems to me that the idea of something needing to get broken before we can learn anything is a more true idea. … Unless the heart breaks, we will never know anything about love. As long as our objective universe doesn’t collapse, we’ll never know anything about the world.

We think that we know the mechanism, but only when it fails do we understand how intricate and mysterious is the operation. So, it is true, “there’s a crack in everything”, all human activity is imperfect and unfinished.

Only that way we can have the notion that there’s something inside us that can only be located through disillusion, bad luck and defeat. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case.

What a thought: “from the broken debris of my heart I will erect an altar to the Lord”. I know it’s not his quote, but it’s gorgeous.

Here’s one of the best covers of the song, Anthem. I can’t embed it, so just copy the link into a browser to hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dIv2MXU7_4&feature=related

And here’s the master, himself:

Anthem by Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

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

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government —
signs for all to see.

I can’t run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
a thundercloud
and they’re going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring …

You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

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

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