Keeping The Faith

The Faith

The sea so deep and blind

The sun, the wild regret

The club, the wheel, the mind,

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The club, the wheel, the mind

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith

These words you can't forget

Your vow, your holy place

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The blood, the soil, the faith

O love, aren't you tired yet?

A cross on every hill

A star, a minaret

So many graves to fill

O love, aren't you tired yet?

So many graves to fill

O love, aren't you tired yet?

The sea so deep and blind

Where still the sun must set

And time itself unwind

O love, aren't you tired yet?

And time itself unwind

O love, aren't you tired yet?

– Leonard Cohen

Friends of mine lived in a small little cottage by the ocean. The house consisted of a kitchen, sitting room, bathroom and two bedrooms. Everywhere the eye chose to wander, battered yet still highly regarded books lay silently scattered here and there on the floor. Some were compiled in various heaps that rose as high as the ceiling. An eclectic assortment of titles popped out of the glorious woodwork, such as W. Blake, D.H Lawrence, C. Baudelaire, S. Weil, W. S. Maugham, W. Faulkner, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, L. Cohen etc. In amongst the organized confusion sat an old fashioned turntable. 

My friends would each eagerly choose and then cradle the LP of Leonard Cohen’s that resonated the most with them. Dear Heather was one of the chosen one's that a few of my friend's confessed, had become one of their own personal defining albums from that year. Each friend excitedly placed their favourite Cohen record on the turntable and from both speakers we would all anticipate the arrival of that specific moment when the stylus tactfully touched and made contact with the LP. 

Cohen’s voice in all it’s glory existed there, in that moment and the air became a radiant “Bible white”. Each new verse so blatantly soaked in love and religion, held our intrigue and we became enraptured by a divine primordial calm. Despair and epiphany bled together, forming a cohesive portrait of a God-hungry, shipwrecked man. Cohen's music worked well to haunt and enchant each of us from beginning to end, which truly enticed our listening experience. And even to this day, his words continue their pulse long into tomorrow's tomorrow.

I must admit, I loved it when we listened endlessly to Leonard’s music. It always produced in each of us an endless dizzying discussion, lasting well into the early hours of the morning. Individually we took the liberty to expound upon his writing and his words, interjecting in the end, our own…O Leonard aren’t you tired yet!!

Of Leonard Cohen's music:

"A delicate fabric of biblical song

buoyantly poised in the air, 

as his wet, wild verse percolates,

the blood, the soil, the faith,

is witnessed everywhere."