2 posts tagged “performance”
Hey everyone, who are your favorite bands or artists to see live?
I realize this blog may be a little lacking in the area of fluidity and it might jump around a bit. I've just been living from deadline to deadline at school this month but I didn't want to miss a week so soon. So, I hope everyone can bear with me, and perhaps it can still work as a means of grace.
I've blogged before about my affection for the often covered, Leonard Cohen penned masterpiece "Hallelujah". Since Cohen originally wrote the song it has taken on a life of its own, for a variety of reasons. As one of the many aspects of the brilliance of the song, one of the reasons for the remarkable cover life the song has experienced would be the reality that over time Cohen continued adding verses to the song, performing the song in different forms throughout the years. Apparently, in total, the song has 15 different verses, and Cohen himself performs only a few at a given time when he plays the song.
This is significant because when an artist covers the song they are able to pick which of the 15 verses they will perform themselves, thus drawing upon what the song means to them so they can truly make the song their own. This is significant with this particular song because, as is often Cohen's tendency, the Biblical metaphors he uses to sing about life and romantic love gives the song layers that make it possible to interpret "Hallelujah" in a seemingly infinite number of ways. I won't go into much more detail about the song's history because, as I said, I've blogged on the song before.
The last time I blogged about the song I included various versions that are among my favorite covers, such as the immortal cover by Jeff Buckley (which is actually what many are covering when they perform the song) and the Rufus Wainwright version. However, as of the time I wrote that blog, I hadn't yet heard David Bazan perform the song, a moment that instantaneously pushed this particular performance to the top of my list.
There are many covers of the song that I love, but none have hit me with the force and depth of David Bazan's, due in large part to his choice of verses (which is actually the original version I believe) along with the desperation and subtle intensity with which Bazan performs.
Bazan's version somehow hits the heart of my faith, or perhaps my consistent lack thereof, as much as any other song I know. I'm sure part of it is the history of what Bazan's other songs have meant to me.
/i 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 4th, the 5th, the minor fall, the major lift/the baffled king composing hallelujah/
I can't recall hearing a version of this song that doesn't begin with this same opening line. This beautiful, poetic description of a baffled King David composing what could only be described as 'Hallelujah'. This idea resonates in me because in a way I relate to it.
There seems to me to be an undercurrent of redemption and beauty under all there is. Often I feel disconnected from this redemption and beauty, and attempting to reach out and touch it by choice is an almost sure way to miss it, but there are countless times when, without expecting it, I have been struck by an overwhelming sense of this beautiful secret hidden in all reality. At times, as with this series of music posts, I try to point out the places where this redemption and beauty appear to me so that I can share it somehow, so that maybe others can experience the feeling I had at unintentionally uncovering buried treasure. Usually these attempts are feeble and misguided, and yet somehow there are times, be it a preaching moment, or when something I've written has been a means of grace to someone else, or even just through a conversation with a friend, when I've been able to be a part of composing hallelujah. There is never a moment, during my part in this, where I could be described as anything other than baffled, and so this understanding of the baffled composing the very essence of hallelujah reminds me that this is the nature of things, it is mysterious and unquantifiable and strange.
/she broke your crown and cut your hair/she tied you to her kitchen chair/and from your lips she drew the hallelujahs/
/you say i took the name in vain/well i don't even know the name/and if i did/well, really, what's it to you?/
And yet, for all of these moments and discoveries, overwhelming doubt is a part of my life as frequently as (and at times, it seems, more frequently than) faith. We've all been crushed and had our 'glory' taken from us. Perhaps it was by those we loved, or by losing that which we cherished, or by pain of many kinds. It's so easy to lose that which makes us feel like ourselves, to forget who we are or to have sudden moments where we realize we never knew. Life constantly seems to throw things at us that break our crown, that leave us powerless, and that take the very hallelujahs from our lips, leaving us empty and without hope.
In these moments, I often rage at a God I feel I hardly know. I kick against the absence and darkness and loneliness that so often seem to be the hallmarks of my relationship with Jesus. And yet at times, it seems that these moments of darkness lead to a brokenness which, while I can't articulate why, I sense may be my only hope for redemption.
/cuz there's a blaze of light in every word/it does not matter which you heard/the holy or the broken hallelujah/
It seems the prosperity gospel most peddle on television and in books speaks of faith as if it is supposed to be an answer to our problems. We'll be happy and wealthy and free from stress and pain, and if not, it just means we don't have enough faith. Once we get rid of that last little bit of sin, once we learn to pray with a heart of faith, all those problems go away. Yet it would seem to me that a life where we were constantly happy and wealthy and free from stress and pain would leave us shallow and empty. Although, even with that said, the pain of this world is unevenly distributed, and to attempt to answer it with a glib "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" type philosophy on life is full of holes. Pain is a mystery. And yet somehow, the only hope for making sense of it is that somehow it is in fact a part of our redemption. God has never explained to us why we suffer, why we are allowed to continue hurting, why children are allowed to pay so dearly for nothing. And yet, the understanding that Jesus is God means that while God doesn't tell us why suffering happens, he sanctified it as holy by coming down amongst our suffering and questioning and tears, saying to all who hurt, "Me too." I don't know how it works, and I avoid suffering as much as anyone I know, but somehow it really doesn't matter whether or not we hear "the holy or the broken hallelujah," because each is brimming with redemption.
Yet, while I write this, hoping for it to be true, I must admit that my suffering and, even more, the suffering of others, often makes it hard for me to believe. But of all the things that make it hard for me to believe there is truth in the Gospel, none strike a deadlier blow than my own life.
/i did my best, it wasn't much/i could not feel so i tried to touch/i told the truth, i did not 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/
The greatest argument I know against the transforming power of the Good News is my own seeming inability to be transformed. I fuck up so constantly. I hurt those I love, I am petty and selfish and lazy, I consistently cooperate with darkness and evil as opposed to Light, as opposed to the Kingdom.
And that is why it often makes me cry when Bazan cries out, with what feels to me as vulnerability and desperation: /And even though it all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah/. Because this is my only hope, that for all the miserable mistakes I make, for all the ugliness I unleash on those around me, for all the times I allow materialism and selfishness to keep me from doing the right thing, that it might be enough when I stand before the Lord of Song to simply cry out "Hallelujah" in my brokenness. To sing out, with my woefully inadequate singing voice, the broken hallelujah.
It strikes me as I write this that perhaps my theology is just a theology of wishful thinking. Maybe I'm just hoping against hope that there might be a place in the Kingdom for someone as screwed up as me. But perhaps it's 'too good not to be true,' to paraphrase C.S. Lewis. Maybe a God who truly knows us intimately understands that while the Gospel is madness, it is even crazier to expect anyone to become a part of the Kingdom if it costs any more than a broken, often half-hearted hallelujah. For my sake, I sure as hell hope that's true; and with the little I've learned about people in my lifetime, I think there's a good chance you do too.
