You want it darker We kill the flame. Review: Leonard Cohen, 'You Want It Darker' The particular darkness that defines Cohen's 14th studio album is nearly inescapable, and found everywhere. While Cohen doesn’t explicitly state what he’s ready for, one can only speculate until more answers might be provided upon the release of the full album in October. These eight and a half songs (the ninth is a reprise) were demoed in Cohen’s home studio; they are most often simply structured and direct. Where? This is a spiritual 3 way conversation between Leonard, Satan and God. A shattering paradox, as Why is such horrifically expansive latitude given to evil? All rights reserved.
He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding; he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.” (Blaise Pascal)Cohen contends with God, like Abraham at Sodom (Genesis 18:16-33), like Jacob at Jabbok (Genesis 32:22-32), like Moses in the desert (Exodus 32:9-14), like Job in anguish (Job 31), like Jeremiah in terror (Jeremiah 20:7-18; Lamentations), like Esther facing genocide, like the psalmists crying out from the suffering of catastrophe, exile, slaughter.Cohen refuses to accept the image of a God complicit in injustice and evil, even if by permission.Undoubtedly the Holocaust, along with its countless modern genocidal analogues, looms large in his mind as he, a Jew, writes, recites, sings—prays—this song.“Vilified, crucified in the human frame.” Easy to imagine in this a Christian meaning. No easy comforts wrapped in smiley tinsel. But pondering his lifetime of observations and experiences, he has some questions. In a world filled with hatred you remind us daily that the love of Christ is the answer to the suffering in creation.One of the great @WordOnFire lessons I've learned & need to reflect on comes from the late Cardinal George:“Precisely because God doesn’t need the world, the very existence of the world is a sign that it has been loved into being.
How could you tolerate all this? What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! How long? ''If Thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame''.
Today, Dr. Tom Neal reflects on the Old Testament dimensions of this great poet’s lament and surrender to God. Jewish sensibility ("Magnified, sanctified" is from the Jeiwsh (Aramaic) kaddish) is always to be arguing (Abraham and Sodom) and to acknowledge that apparent good and evil both come from God (see Job); Satan, in Jewish thinking, is "the adversary", but he is man's adversary, not God's. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Still, you could never describe You Want It Darker as merely more of the same. I do think people have a purpose on this earth and once it is done, they pass on and I think some know when that has happened but I'm not sure all people know.
The Hebrew word God tested Abraham. The "Lover in the story but the story's still the same" is regardless of any good in this world is eclipsed by evil.
The Hebrew word he uses is not one to use lightly in that when you speak it, it means you are seriously following God and only doing that with your heart and soul, it is your only purpose on earth, to follow God. “I’m leaving the table/I’m outta the game,” growls Cohen on Catholicism, 75” I interpret "You want it Darker" is humanity is the devil.
A The song is just brilliant: raw, shocking honesty, protest in the face of the dark night of evil—spoken before the face of God. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. But for a Jew, the very fact that God’s image is marred by human cruelty causes insufferable dissonance. You Want It Darker could be addressed to fans pining for a return to Cohen’s bleakest songwriting; or a lover, or a higher power. In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence—a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?
He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding; he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.” (Blaise Pascal)Cohen contends with God, like Abraham at Sodom (Genesis 18:16-33), like Jacob at Jabbok (Genesis 32:22-32), like Moses in the desert (Exodus 32:9-14), like Job in anguish (Job 31), like Jeremiah in terror (Jeremiah 20:7-18; Lamentations), like Esther facing genocide, like the psalmists crying out from the suffering of catastrophe, exile, slaughter.Cohen refuses to accept the image of a God complicit in injustice and evil, even if by permission.Undoubtedly the Holocaust, along with its countless modern genocidal analogues, looms large in his mind as he, a Jew, writes, recites, sings—prays—this song.“Vilified, crucified in the human frame.” Easy to imagine in this a Christian meaning. No easy comforts wrapped in smiley tinsel. But pondering his lifetime of observations and experiences, he has some questions. In a world filled with hatred you remind us daily that the love of Christ is the answer to the suffering in creation.One of the great @WordOnFire lessons I've learned & need to reflect on comes from the late Cardinal George:“Precisely because God doesn’t need the world, the very existence of the world is a sign that it has been loved into being.
How could you tolerate all this? What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! How long? ''If Thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame''.
Today, Dr. Tom Neal reflects on the Old Testament dimensions of this great poet’s lament and surrender to God. Jewish sensibility ("Magnified, sanctified" is from the Jeiwsh (Aramaic) kaddish) is always to be arguing (Abraham and Sodom) and to acknowledge that apparent good and evil both come from God (see Job); Satan, in Jewish thinking, is "the adversary", but he is man's adversary, not God's. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Still, you could never describe You Want It Darker as merely more of the same. I do think people have a purpose on this earth and once it is done, they pass on and I think some know when that has happened but I'm not sure all people know.
The Hebrew word God tested Abraham. The "Lover in the story but the story's still the same" is regardless of any good in this world is eclipsed by evil.
The Hebrew word he uses is not one to use lightly in that when you speak it, it means you are seriously following God and only doing that with your heart and soul, it is your only purpose on earth, to follow God. “I’m leaving the table/I’m outta the game,” growls Cohen on Catholicism, 75” I interpret "You want it Darker" is humanity is the devil.
A The song is just brilliant: raw, shocking honesty, protest in the face of the dark night of evil—spoken before the face of God. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. But for a Jew, the very fact that God’s image is marred by human cruelty causes insufferable dissonance. You Want It Darker could be addressed to fans pining for a return to Cohen’s bleakest songwriting; or a lover, or a higher power. In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence—a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?