Once in a while I just want to rant about some long-standing irritant.
A few years ago, Leonard Cohen– whom I deeply admire– issued an album with a song on it (called “Anthem”) with the lyric: “There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in”. Many people I know have quoted this line to me– nodding their head as if in deep contemplation– as if it is profound or beautiful or deep.
Here’s the whole context:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
It’s not a great line. It’s not even good. It’s lame. It’s a Hallmark Card of pseudo-profundity, and emblematic of Cohen’s exhausted talents at this stage of his career. Nothing on any of his recent albums is as remotely interesting as his splendid earlier songs like “Suzanne”, “The Bell”, “Chelsea Hotel”, or “Famous Blue Raincoat”, or “The Future”, or “If it be Your Will”.
I thought of it today as I was listening to the Bare Naked Ladies cover of “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by Bruce Cockburn, and these lyrics arrived:
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.
I thought, aha: that’s the same idea as Cohen’s crack about crack, but far more beautifully expressed. The word “bleeds” gives it a more visceral punch. The word “kick” alludes to desperation.
Cockburn never rose to the level of Cohen at his best, but he has written some exquisite songs and his musical skills are far more impressive.