Apparently slicing Uptown Funk in half just fucking drops all the words, so here’s an absolutely banging funk instrumental that is the negative space between Uptown Funk.
it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired
THAT IS EXACTLY WHY
I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
um woah
I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??
In Yiddish
In Hebrew
In Ladino
Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.
You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah
These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.
None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace – you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.
Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise – hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.
Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.
(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)
holy shit. woah.
This.
I … I am finding myself having some very powerful and inarticulate Feels about @dduane reblogging this whole thing with the tag #Young Wizards meta.
As a somewhat lapsed Catholic I feel every fucking word of this
……
That feeling when a post is by Jewish people, about Jewish people, about a song about being Jewish being appropriated by Christians, and someone comes onto the post and says “as a Catholic….”
who else is angry that lyrically and musically the black parade is a fucking masterpiece but it’s always going to be written off as “shitty emo music” because teenage girls liked it
Black parade is the bohemian rhapsody of our generation and no one can take that away from me or us.
you know what, i literally started yelling this in the tags and got so mad I have to put it in the main post, here:
I WILL ACTUALLY FUCKING FIGHT AND DIE ON THIS HILL, THAT BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY COMPARISON BEING SO *APT,* BECAUSE OF THE FORMATIVE CLASSIC/GLAM ROCK INFLUENCES AND DIRECT REFERENCES IN BLACK PARADE, SPECIFICALLY QUEEN. LITERALLY JUST ‘BLACK PARADE’ ALONE, LISTEN TO THOSE FUCKING BRIAN MAY-ESQUE GUITAR ARPEGGIOS. WATCH THE VIDEO. LOOK AT WHAT GERARD WAY IS DOING WITH THE HALF MIC-STAND/GESTURES AND BLACK VERSION OF THE ICONIC YELLOW BUCKLE JACKET. LISTEN TO THE TEMPO SHIFTS IN ‘MAMA’ AND TELL ME THAT’S NOT A DIRECT STYLISTIC/ERA CONVENTION HOMAGE/ALSO JUST MUSICALLY THE TIGHTEST SHIT
THIS SHIT IS HIGHLY INTENTIONAL AND I KIND OF CAN’T BELIEVE MORE ROCK NERDS DON’T SEE IT except I do, we do know why
I’m still shook, even now at 5am on a Thursday, over what I witnessed a few days ago in the Barnes & Noble Starbucks. Absolutely shook.
Two grown-ass men, obviously friends but dressed like they were in two different high school cliques, were arguing, passionately about who Gerard Way was. The one wearing a Green Lantern shirt and thick-rimmed hipster glasses said that Gerard Way is the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. The other guy was wearing what I wore during my emo phase in middle school, mostly black with a skinny red tie and a grey vest, was arguing that Gerard Way was a comic book writer.
Then a third person comes up, obviously another friend as she put down a tray of drinks for the three of them, looking like she could’ve been a Kappa Nu with Elle Woods, and asks “What dumb thing are you two arguing about now?”
The two men reply. Elle Woods’ sorority sister says “They’re the same damn person, you idiots. He does both things.”
Absolutely shook. I feel like I witnessed the utopia suggested by the end of High School Musical where everyone from all the different cliques are friends and Wildcats or some shit…
Now I’m imagining a fic where these two show each other comics and music and fall in love over the shared love of the multidudes Gerard Way contans and I think that’s just so beautiful.
Everyone on my Tumblr dash seems to be learning ukelele. I wasn’t, but I live in a house with probably two dozen or so musical instruments, and I was certain I’d seen a uke somewhere. I mean, there was my younger brother’s uke, which he’d bought with his own pocket money as a kid, and my late grandmother’s uke, still beribboned, but I was sure I’d seen a blue one somewhere that I was pretty certain was unclaimed and just part of the general musical collection.
Well, as you can see, I dug it out from behind the sofa. And if you can count, you’ll see that it’s not a uke at all.
It’s a quarter size guitar.
And unlike every other guitar I’ve ever held, I can actually get my hand around the neck, which means, theoretically, I’d be able to play it. Even my mum’s half size was a bit too wide for my short fingers.
And, yeah, obviously, it needs a restring, a strap and a case, and it’s scratched to hell, but the bridge is fine, all the pegs are there, and from what I can tell, the tone is gorgeous.
Finally found out its origins, too. “Someone was going to throw it away,” Mum said. “And I didn’t really need it or want it, but then I heard the sound it made, and I knew it was a really good guitar, so I saved it.”
So, yeah, it’s just been waiting for someone to play it. It doesn’t have any kind of branding besides what I think is a music store sticker inside, so no idea how old it is or what it’s worth (nothing, probably), but it sounds awesome with three untuned strings, so let’s see what it’s like in my completely novice hands once it’s fixed up.
I’m not the only one who finds themselves listening to the same song over and over again because it’s perfect auditory stim, right?
Absolutely. And Hot Chip’s Over and Over is probably the ultimate stim song for me. Also, Teardrop by Massive Attack. I was stimming listening to songs on repeat before I knew what stimming was, before I knew I was autistic.
knitting in the dark 