Was there a scene in A BUG’S LIFE where the catapillar sings a lovely song that hypnotizes everyone around him?

i went to see leonard cohen with my father last month at the beacon theater in new york.  it was incredible.  at seventy-plus years, he (leonard cohen, not my father) was as great as i could have imagined and way better than the sloppy, tone-deaf man dressed in hobo-sheek that sat behind us and sang the first and last two words of every line of every song.  i used to say leonard cohen was an acquired taste, but he isn’t.  he’s just a poet and you either get it or you don’t.

antony – of antony and the johnsons and hercules and love affair – might actually be an acquired taste.  when i first heard the former’s “i am a bird now” i pictured a flock of dudes in tight jeans, pen-drawn-and-torn vans/converse, flannel and fedora dismissing the group as too hipster.  it really isn’t a hipster thing with antony and the johnsons.  it’s just a little weird and a lot excellent.  i’m in, lower east side.  where do i sign?

in any case, i’m compelled to offer the following video as an example of both men’s incomparable talents.  this is antony performing “if it be your will” on this amazing leonard cohen documentary.

you. are. welcome.

pee ess: visit the antony and the johnsons website for twenty minutes that you will forever be confused by and never get back.

At 74 years of age, Cohen is still a man working for our smile. Last night there were more than ten thousand of them looking back at him. It was a joyous transaction.

Cohen stood as a beacon of beauty, hope, humility. Every word, every movement (that now famous shuffle) infused with a commitment to delivering his life’s work.

From opener Dance Me To The End Of Love, Cohen’s voice sat somewhere deep inside me, resonating. His lyrical legacy laid bare in a show that spanned more than 3-hours. For the most part, the audience sat hushed, each of them a pilgrim, there to be transformed by the music, poetry and spirituality of Cohen’s words. And although the music is stunning, each of the players in this 9-piece ensemble brimming with passion, it is the words that hold us.

His well-worn baritone beguiles as he strips back the opening of ‘Anthem’, speaking the words:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

Later in the show, he gives a solo reading of  the first verses of ‘If It Be Your Will’:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

before standing back, hat held over heart as the angelic Webb sisters, take the lead and deliver a stunning, stripped back version of this song.

And then he returns the lyric of A Thousand Kisses Deep to their poetic heart, reciting them with only a whisper of Hammond Organ to accompany him.

In these moments Cohen, the poet, holds us breathless.

There were many other standouts, in a set list that showcased every period of Cohen’s work. Some of mine were, My Secret Life, Famous Blue Raincoat, First We Take Manhattan, Who By Fire and Tower of Song, where Cohen urges the gorgeous backing vocalists Sharon Robinson and Charley & Hattie Webb to ‘keep going, keep going that’s all I want to hear…’

Yes, Cohen not only delivers a concert studded with moments of illumination, he delivers the secret of life’s suffering. And it is… Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum.

After numerous standing ovations, he stands before us one last time. The audience on their feet, united, waiting for Cohen’s final sermon.

He thanks us for keeping his songs alive for so long, hopes we are all surrounded by love, family and friends, but if not, he hopes that happiness finds us in solitude.

The lights come up for the final time and I am left with one hand on my chest clutching the sonorous rumble of his voice. A voice I will never let out…

If you’ve been listening to too much Napalm Death or sitting around smoking crack and staying up for days masturbating to progressively more depraved porn, then you may need a little balsam for your soul. If you aren’t moved by this clip of Antony singing Leonard Cohen’s If It Be Your Will, then congratulations: you are robot.

I normally don’t like it when other people sing Leonard Cohen songs. They always seem to emphasise the wrong bits and turn all that pathos into bathos, so the song ends up as rotten tear porn for white bread shit like the OC, but Antony really nailed it. Here is the same song being sung by Leonard. His voice is amazing, it’s an aural equivalent of old an map, all yellow cracked parchment.

This is of course a reference to the tag-line (if that is the phrase I want) for the seminal 70’s film, Jaws blogs.laweekly.com/judith_lewis/ la-water/just-when-you-thought-it-was-s/ -

- and I’m afraid Cohen is resurfacing once again and preparing to bite off your arm, as I’ve just been given “The Essential Cohen”, www.amazon.com/Essential-Leonard-Cohen/dp/B00006NSH8 a retrospective walk through the man and his music – a bit like exhibiting a painter’s work.  You know – there’s the famous picture of his muse that everyone has on their wall (Suzanne)  then the dark blacks and greys of one hand on his suicide with those astonishing glimpses of rose light.  You can see the Jewish and the Zen influences without the programme pointing them out (Who by Fire)www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2T274bXIxU - and as you move on you can see the work maturing, the colours deepening, the palate broadening, until you come to the flowering of later works (Hallelujah) www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf36v0epfmIwhich has been copied everywhere www.youtube.com/watch?v=AratTMGrHaQ- and then you sit arrested, poleaxed, by your favourite painting of all time, the one that never fails to pierce your heart and wound your mind with its sublimity – “If it Be Your Will”. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AratTMGrHaQ You sit before the canvas in a kind of swoon, dead to yourself, until the curator comes jingling his keys, when you get up and take a final walk through the last rooms, including Ten New Pictures www.amazon.com/ Ten-New-Songs-Leonard-Cohen/dp/B00005Q45Wand his most recent which are in a different style and include a couple of copies of Old Masters. www.dearheather.com/You exit with a sigh as the curator locks the door.

The next morning you are waiting when he opens.  You have been there all night, your pilgrim feet stamping in the cold.

I’m pretty much away this days. Not in the actual sense, but I’m not hooked up to the internet so this explains my lack of activity.
This internet break it’s actually good. I do more or less important things, I read and watch Dawson’s Creek, reminding myself how I was during my high school years.
It’s been raining on and off for several days now, so my activities are just perfect
I’m gonna leave you now with a beautiful cover, Antony Hegarty covering Leonard Cohen’s If It Be Your Will. Yeah, I’m under the weather.

Fantastica interpretazione da parte di Antony Hegarty di una famosa canzone di Leonard Cohen…da pelle d’oca…

Piccola dedica a Nico, in quanto è stato lui a farmi conoscere Antony and the Johnsons…

“If we ask anything according to His will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14).  If we know the will of God in a matter, then we can pray with the confidence Jesus talked about when he said, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).  But how do we know when we are praying according to the will of God?

One common answer often given, though not always clearly formulated, is that God reveals His will to our minds and then we know how to pray.  There is Scriptural support for this concept the experience of  God’s prophets and in everyday believers.  And there is a very objective way of discovering God’s will offered in Scripture.  It is the Scriptures themselves.  The Scriptures give us specific information as to what God’s will is and so give us specific areas in which we may confidently pray with a certainty of being answered.

For example, we may confidently pray for God to bring conviction of sin to a straying believer, because, assuming they are saved, the Scriptures teach us that they cannot ultimately fall away in sin.  Hebrews 12 assures us that the believer will be disciplined and restored.  We may also, likewise, pray confidently for the growth of believers as the apostle Paul did (see, for example, Colossians 1:9-12).  God has predestined us to become “conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29).  We may also pray for laborers for the harvest knowing that God will answer (Luke 10:2).  You may confidently ask for forgiveness (1 John 1:9), for wisdom in times of suffering (James 1:5), and so on.

When we know God’s will, not just what He desires or expects of us, but what He says He will do, then we can pray with assurance of a positive answer.  This is not to say that we cannot pray for others’ salvation, for healing, for whatever our desires may be.  But we cannot presumptuously demand God respond to our desires in these areas since we do not know His will (unless He has personally revealed to our spirits that He is going to answer these prayers).

In such cases we may ask God, if He wills, to answer our prayers.  This is what Jesus did (Matthew 26:39).  Jesus knew the Father’s will was for the Messiah to suffer, but He expressed his desire that it pass from him.  Nevertheless, he yielded to the Father’s will. 

Praying, “If it be your will” is our way of submitting to God’s sovereignty.  He still wants to hear us express our feelings to Him.  He delights in the prayers of His saints.  But perhaps we get overly discouraged at the lack of answers to our prayers because we are not spending enough time praying for the things God has said He will do.