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.
Please Don’t Pass Me By (A Disgrace)
By Leonard Cohen
I was walking in New York City and I brushed up against the man in front of me. I felt a cardboard placard on his back. and when we passed a streetlight, I could read it, it said “please don’t pass me by – I am blind, but you can see -I’ve been blinded totally – please don’t pass me by.” I was walking along 7th avenue, when I came to 14th street I saw on the corner curious mutilation of the human form; it was a school for handicapped people. and there were cripples, and people in wheelchairs and crutches and it was snowing, and I got this sense that the whole city was singing:
Oh please don’t pass me by,
Oh please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, but you can see,
Yes, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh please don’t pass me by.
And you know as I was walking I thought it was them who were singing it, I thought it was they who were singing it, I thought it was the other who was singing it, I thought it was someone else.
As I moved along I knew it was me, and that I was singing it to myself. it went:
Please don’t pass me by,
Oh please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, but you can see,
Well, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh please don’t pass me by.
Oh please don’t pass me by.
Now I know that you’re sitting there deep in your velvet seats and you’re thinking “uh, he’s up there saying something that he thinks about, but I’ll never have to sing that song.” but
I promise you friends, that you’re going to be singing this song: it may not be tonight, it may not be tomorrow, but one day you’ll be on your knees and I want you to know the words when the time comes.
Because you’re going to have to sing it to yourself, or to another, or to your brother. You’re going to have to learn to sing this song, it goes:
Please don’t pass me by,
Ah you don’t have to sing this .. not for you.
Please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, but you can see,
Yes, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh please don’t pass me by.
Well I sing this for the Jews and the Gypsies and the smoke that they made. and I sing this for the children of England, their faces so grave. And I sing this for a savior with no one to save.
Won’t you be naked for me? hey, won’t you be naked for me? it goes:
Please don’t pass me by,
Oh please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, but you can see,
Yes, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh now, please don’t pass me by.
Now there’s nothing that I tell you that will help you connect the blood tortured night with the day that comes next, but I want it to hurt you, I want it to end. Oh, won’t you be naked for me?
Please don’t pass me by,
Oh please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, but you can see,
Yes, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh now, please don’t pass me by.
Well I sing this song for you blonde beasts, I sing this song for you Venuses upon your shells on the foam of the sea. and I sing this for the freaks and the cripples, and the hunchback, and the burned and the burning, and the maimed, and the broken, and the torn, and all of those that you talk about at the coffee tables, at the meetings, and the demonstrations, on the streets, in your music, in my songs. I mean the real ones that are burning, I mean the real ones that are burning
I say, please don’t pass me by,
Oh now, please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, but you can see,
Ah now, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh no, please don’t pass me by.
I know that you still think that it’s me. I know that you think that there’s somebody else. I know that these words aren’t yours. but I tell you friends that one day
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down on your knees,
You’re going to get down …
Oh, please don’t pass me by,
Oh, please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, yeah but you can see,
Yes, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh, please don’t pass me by.
Well you know I have my songs and I have my poems. I have my book and I have the Army, and sometimes I have your applause. I make some money, but you know what my friends, I’m still out there on the corner. I’m with the freaks, I’m with the hunted, I’m with the maimed, yes I’m with the torn, I’m with the down, I’m with the poor. come on now …
Ah, please don’t pass me by,
Well I’ve got to go now friends,
But, please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, yeah but you can see,
Oh, I’ve been blinded, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh now, please don’t pass me by.
Now I want to take away my dignity, yes take my dignity. my friends, take my dignity, take my form, take my style, take my honour, take my courage, take my time, take my time, .. time .. ’cause
Now I’m with you singing this song. and I wish you would, I wish you would, I wish you would go home with someone else. wish you’d go home with someone else. I wish you’d go home with someone else.
Don’t be the person that you came with. oh, don’t be the person that you came with, oh don’t be the person that you came with. ah, I’m not going to be. I can’t stand him. I can’t stand who I am.
That is why I’ve got to get down on my knees. because I can’t make it by myself. I’m not by myself anymore because the man I was before he was a tyrant, he was a slave, he was in chains, he was broken.
Then he sang:
Oh, please don’t pass me by,
Oh, please don’t pass me by,
For I am blind, yes I am blind, oh but you can see,
Yes, I’ve been blinded totally,
Oh, please don’t pass me by.
Well I hope I see you out there on the corner. Yeah, I hope as I go by that I hear you whisper with the breeze because I’m going to leave you now. I’m going to find me someone new. Find someone new.
And please don’t pass me by.
© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
* “I Can’t Forget,” shares an underlying recognition of the need for others with this Song of the Week. For example:
“I’m burning up the road
I’m heading down to Phoenix
I got this old address
Of someone that I knew
It was high and fine and free
Ah, you should have seen us
And I can’t forget, I can’t forget
I can’t forget but I don’t remember who.”
A good study by Cohen (and you) of the experience of separation which precedes the transcending awareness of connection. Your correlation of forgetting connection and only remembering loneliness is very astute. Human loneliness breaks our knees, and when it does we find ourselves kneeling somewhere soaked in tears, mourning in the pains of separation and loss, crying out for connection in a shattered universe. And, mysteriously – it comes.
Or, not so mysteriously, we go and try to get it for ourselves and join a group, a belief, a movement, and set up a surrogate for the connection we seek, and prepare the way for another go-round through a separated life. We can’t forget who we really are, but we can’t remember who…
There’s something of intrinsic worth in everything. Take that, and leave the rest. Those who wander in the wilderness and suffer the dark nights of the human soul are not well and truly answered by a system, belief, or value. They are answered by a mystery they can not fathom which they realize is the intrinsic essence of human existence. We are connected, not separate. It’s a fundamental attribute of the hardware of humanity.
What you have to watch out for is the software. There are some strange programs out there. A lot of viral infections are coded up out of the separation worm and the loneliness exploit.