Leonard Cohen
-
Cohen’s ‘If It Be Your Will’: Song, Prayer, Psalm
Leonard Cohen described If It Be Your Will ‘as more of a prayer’ than a song during his introduction to its performance by the Webb Sisters and Neil Larson. Here I suggest that it is not only a prayer but more specifically a psalm. Even the title is highly suggestive of a key feature of… Continue reading
-
H is for Hallelujah
Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has a life of its own Western culture. I have lost count of the covers I have heard, and the number of films it has been used in. It is a riff on Psalm 51, the ultimate evolution from Allegri who we met in the first of these posts. It opens with… Continue reading
-
Malcolm Guite’s ‘David’s Crown’: A Review
Malcolm Guite, David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms, Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2021 Malcolm Guite conceived and wrote this book during the earliest months of the pandemic. There is an irony in this origin, for corona, a word that had eluded most of us until a year ago, can refer to a crown or coronet of poems.… Continue reading
-
Psalm 51: Miserere mei, Deus
For various reasons I have been reflecting on the penitential psalms for much of 2020. If this is a response in any way to Covid-19 then it has been an unconscious one. The grouping of Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143 together dates to before the time of Cassiodorus (487–585). Some attribute… Continue reading
-
P is for Psalms
The Psalms are 150 compositions that defy monochromatic definitions— they are never solely poems or prayers or songs. In their threefold nature they are words addressed to God and at the same time the editors of the Hebrew Bible saw in them a greater value as Scripture. In some sense they are authoritative and normative.… Continue reading
-
K is for King David
K is for King David This post will take some lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s legendary song Hallelujah as its framework. The second verse of Hallelujah reflects on an infamous scene of adultery: Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you She… Continue reading
-
Psalm 149—Singing a New Song in 2017
Purple Rain: 2016 2016 was by any standards a remarkable year. On two days I awoke to the opposite outcome to that which I had expected in a national vote – I was personally disappointed on both counts. This time last year no one would have predicted all of the big events on the world… Continue reading
-
Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah as Midrash
Midrash is a complex type of Jewish exegesis that blossomed as Judaism become Rabbinic. One, and it is only one, of the tools of midrash is using diverse texts from the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) to answer questions asked by hearers of the text. In this way a deep reverence for the text is combined… Continue reading
-
A Broken Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen’s Secret Chord
Liel Leibovitz, A Broken Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen’s Secret Chord, Dingwall: Sandstone Press, 2014. Liel Leiovitz, assistant professor of Communications at New York University, argues that his book on Leonard Cohen is not a biography. In a similar vein this post is not a book review. Whatever else Leibovitz’s book is, it is certainly a sympathetic… Continue reading
About Me
This blog’s central aim is to explore all aspects of how the Psalter (the biblical psalms) functions as Scripture today.
To this end it will also include book reviews on the Book of Psalms and related topics.
Some posts will reflect more broadly on biblical interpretation or hermeneutics.
If you like what you see here and want to arrange for me to give a lecture, run a teaching event or a short retreat based around The Psalms then contact me so we can discuss how this might work.
PsalterMark 