SONG OF THE WEEK – PLEASE DON’T PASS ME BY (A DISGRACE)

Leonard Cohen seems to be edging into my consciousness this week.  I received a couple of emails about a new album of live performances he is releasing next month called Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour.  I have heard three songs from that album so far – a reinterpretation of “I Can’t Forget,”* which was not bad; a cover of the old George Jones song, “Choices,” which I thought he did very well; and a brand new song, “Never Gave Nobody Trouble,” which is certainly not up to the quality of his best work.

Of course, he is over 80 years old now and has been writing for most of those years, so to reach the quality of his best work is difficult.

Then, when I went to church this weekend, the musicians sang a song with decidedly Christian lyrics (which would be expected in a Catholic mass) to the tune of Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

I don’t know how most people consider the word “hallelujah” or “alleluia” today.  In our society, it seems to be most often used as a joyful song of praise to God.  In its original Hebrew form, the word is derived from the second person plural of a verb exhorting several people to praise “Jah” or “Yah” or “Yahweh.”

Leonard Cohen’s song is sort of an amalgam of his Jewish heritage and his penchant for writing certain kinds of human love songs, and his use of “hallelujah” seems an amalgam of the exhortation to praise and the praise itself.  For instance, he begins, “They say that there’s a secret chord/That David played and it pleased the Lord/But you don’t really care for music, do ya?”  Then as it goes into the chorus, repeating ‘hallelujah,” it seems that the listeners are being exhorted to follow in the footsteps of David and bring forth their own praise.  Later, when referring to human love and being in love, he says “every breath we drew was hallelujah.”  That is clearly the praise itself and is more internalized than a second person plural verb would be.

Anyway, back to the church music.  At our church the words of the songs are projected onto a screen, and usually at the bottom copyright information is given.  However, there was no such in formation for that version of “Hallelujah.”  My first thought was that it seems wrong for a Christian church to seem to brush aside a nice little Jewish man.  Then I was reminded of a song recorded live in London 45 years ago and included on Leonard’s 1973 album, Live Songs.  The song is “Please Don’t Pass Me By (A Disgrace).”

In the song, Leonard tells of walking along a street in New York and brushing against a blind man with a sign that read, “Please don’t pass me by.”  A few blocks later he walked past a school for the handicapped and was struck by the feeling that the whole town was pleading, “Please don’t pass me by.”  From that perspective he reflected on human interactions in general and concluded that at some time in life every one of us will find a need to plead, either aloud or silently, for others to see us, recognize our humanity and give us understanding.

In this song – which is really more of a narrative poem set to music – Leonard talks on for more than 13 minutes about the need for that recognition.  In the end, though, he has no interaction with any of those he sees as crying out for help and recognition.  Essentially, he has passed them all by and focused on his own moment of personal catharsis.

I have always had the feeling that one source of inspiration for this piece by Leonard Cohen is the old Christian hymn, written right after the American Civil War, “Pass Me Not.”  That song begins:  “Pass me not, O Gentle Savior/Hear my humble cry/While on others Thou art calling/Do not pass me by.”  (And see Genesis 18:3)

So, while while the Catholics used a Christian version of a Jewish-influenced work, here we have the same Jewish person inspired by an old Christian hymn that was itself inspired by a Jewish scripture.  It is fairly symmetrical, if nothing else.

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