Rufus Wainwright at the Carolina Theatre

I had the privilege of enjoying this show earlier tonight.  I wasn't very familiar with his music, but I left determined to listen to more.

Though he played mostly his own songs, he also treated us to two songs by Leonard Cohen, who was a friend of his.  One of them was this classic.



Hearing him sing it live was a gift, as live music shows so often are.

The power of live music to touch me continues to amaze me. 

Do check out Rufus Wainwright's work if you don't know it.

I'm heading to Vegas in the morning

and I am still way behind and haven't packed, so I best get to it.  In the meantime, enjoy this lovely version of the Cohen classic, which has been on my mind since I first saw it a couple of weeks ago.  If you haven't watched or heard it yet, it's a treat.  If you have, let it play just to take in the song.



Enjoy.

Leonard Cohen, R.I.P.

Well, this week delivered another fine blow:  Leonard Cohen is dead.  He was 82, so he had a reasonably long life, but I have to tell you that from where I stand right now, that's just not enough years--not for him, not for me, not for anyone.

At the risk of repeating everyone else, I'm putting here a relatively recent performance of his brilliant song, "Hallelujah."



Damn, another legend passes.  2016 has been brutal for musicians.

Their work stands, though they are gone.

This song will always touch me.

We will not see Leonard Cohen's like again soon.

Sometimes, I need this song

I almost never know why, but then I'm playing it, over and over, as I write or do other work.



Today, tonight, that happened, so now you have it, too.

Working on the page proofs of Children No More

That's where my spare time is going right now. I go through the manuscript very carefully, so it's a time-consuming process. I'm already behind schedule, so I'm going to get back to work.

As a small compensation, let me leave you with a classic that now and again I simply must listen to. I've linked to it before, but it's time once again. Enjoy Jeff Buckley's soaring vocals on this Leonard Cohen masterpiece.

Because sometimes you just have to

I'm working on the end of draft two of Overthrowing Heaven. I'm closing in on it, and now that I'm so close to finishing this pass I know what I must play over and over: Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah."



Leonard Cohen wrote it, and I love his version, but for my money this Jeff Buckley rendition, the one from the album, not any of the live sessions, is the definitive one, the one you must hear. I chose this YouTube post, which isn't a video at all, just an excuse to post the song, precisely so you get Buckley from the ablum.

From the opening breath to the final notes, this song is pure and powerful and gut-wrenching.

What I love about this song is that you can listen to the words and spend as much time as you're willing to devote to it trying to decide exactly what Cohen meant--or you can simply let the sound of it, the mood of it, carry you away and feel it so strongly it overcomes you. No wonder the song appears so often on TV shows and is the subject of so many online postings.

Some songs hit me, reach inside me, and yank out a burbling sun of feelings, an ongoing natural reactor that is constantly on the edge of exploding. I can crank up this song, stand in the middle of a room, close my eyes, and work myself up to the point of almost unbearable emotion, body shaking, eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking.

Why would I do that?

Because life should be that intense sometimes, because art should hit us that hard, because I dream of writing sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books that smack someone else's heart around, that for a second let the two of us stand together in the searing, soaring fire of shared emotion.

It's true: I'm such a teenager still, all these years later.

You know what, though?

I hope I always am.