This is the script of this morning’s Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast Show with Scott Mills.
Get this: this day in 2016 Leonard Cohen released his last album You Want it Darker -only 17 days before he died. Now, was he being serious or having a bit of a laugh? Cohen had written songs and poetry for decades, and many of them dealt with matters of living and dying. He sometimes seemed to be surprised at still being here – and he loved being wittily funny about the deepest things.
His voice isn’t to everybody’s choice – deep, slow and often ironic. But, I love it – a voice that has been lived in. I saw him in Manchester when he was 80 and had a fantastic band. But, he kept kneeling down and thousands of us held our breath to see if he’d manage to get up again. He was old, but very live.
Perhaps his most famous lines are: “Let the bells ring out. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.” He knew what it was to be cracked, and he made no excuses. But he also couldn’t be miserable. In the live show, between two songs, he drawled about how he had tried all the religions (he listed them) and a string of drugs (he named them); then, after a pause, he smiled and whispered: “But, joy kept breaking through!”
You can see why I’m a fan. Like many, many people, Cohen longed for a life of meaning, depth and holiness … in the sense of open honesty with God, himself and the wider world. His relationship with God was constantly ambivalent as he struggled to reconcile faith and suffering.
You might think it odd that I am praising such a man. Shouldn’t I hold up an example of strong faith? Well, no. The Bible is a long record of people like Leonard Cohen who struggle to be true, to get it right, knowing his own weakness and human fragility. No pretence; no sham idealism; just authentic living and dying, with joy breaking in.
You want it darker? If it sounds like this, yes.
