Broken and Holy

It’s 2008 and I’m learning something important.

A song.

It must be important because the radio and everyone is playing it these days and I am expected to perform it at The Mayne Stage Theatre in three weeks for yada-yada-who-knows-what fundraiser my friend Sam is organizing. 

K.D. Lang did a popular cover, milking her delay of the first syllable at the chorus…Ha in Hallelujah. As if K.D. wrote the thing herself. 

And Rufus! Rufus Wainwright basically stole the song outright from the Great Leonard Cohen with his 2001 release on the Shrek album. Everyone thought Rufus came up with all that and he didn’t do much to deny it. 

 nd before that, it was Jeff Buckley. Still the most daring version you’ve ever heard. Maybe he’s the only one who really got it. Then he died. 

I can spot ‘em, because I am also guilty, repeatedly over-emphasizing “broken” with a guttural vocal fry building from “it’s a cold and it’s a BROKEN hallelujah” right at the C#m. The truth: we’re all desperate to have a grasp at that genius. We mere unworthies. Disciples of the Great Mystifier Mr. Leonard Cohen, wrangler of words. 

You can’t say “but” when you mean sorry. You can’t say “cold” when you mean tepid. You can’t say “dance” when you mean move. You can’t say “I don’t have the money for that” when you mean I don’t want to spend the money for that. You can’t say “huge breakfast” when you mean 2 pancakes. Nor talent when you mean effort. 

But here’s a guy who knew his stuff. 

“All I ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.” 

You can’t say lyrics when you mean poetry. 

I’m being called to the stage. Three weeks of playing the Cohen every day for hours, analyzing every tone, every micro moment. There have been a string of formidable performers, duos and trios, actors, poets, before me and in between paddle raises and speeches. And I have been tasked to sit at the Steinway Grande in black tights and a green cocktail dress for the final slot of the night in the drop dead silence of Morse Avenue’s newly rehabilitated landmark theatre. 

Why sign on for this? 

I could barely handle the pressure to lead a three-person girl scout troupe up a hill, yet they’ve tasked me with 500 people and a goddamn moment. 

Why is it so silent in here? 

I know they know. They’ve heard the Lang, the Wainwright. The Buckley. Maybe even the Cohen. My inability to wow them matches their familiarity with the song. 

I’m got no gift to bring… So I nod to the crowd. I sit. Say something cheeky. Start the E major C#m jostle. And kinda. I guess. Just. Let. Go. 

Like a newly birthed bunny succumbing to a skulk of foxes. Like the ascent of a dying soul. 

Like a broken and a holy hallelujah.