Christmas Playlist, Christmas Musings

Today I slept late and woke to the intoxicating aroma of turkey and stuffing in the kitchen. Every year on Christmas day my grandfather wakes at some ridiculous hour to begin preparations for dinner. I suppose the intention is to counter the potential atrocity of eating 'too late' in the evening (something he's always sharply rejected); instead, we invariably end up eating at about 3:30 in the afternoon. But you'd never catch me complaining about this.

After dinner today, we watched Burn After Reading, the new Coen Brothers film, and drank sparkling wine (my brother opting instead for beer). Then we slowly withdrew to our respective corners of the house. I spoke to my mother, wished her well, and she reminded me to open the presents she sent. (This is a story unto itself: annually she sends me and my brother an incredibly large box, meticulously wrapped, with an abundance of love and a taping job bordering on the insane.)

Anyway, I wonder what I'll be doing for the rest of the night. I had some thoughts about going to Christmas Mass last night, but where would I go, and why? It was just a thought, I didn't follow through, and I'd probably feel ridiculously out of place. Instead I tried to write some poetry, thought tenderly about what this time of year means for me, and read a page of an Adorno essay. Then I turned to some songs, and found myself reading a terrific blog about Leonard Cohen, which in turn inspired "Hallelujah" on my own playlist below.

The story of Leonard Cohen is a familiar one, with special pertinence this year. Cohen was born in Montreal to a middle-class Jewish family in the thirties, and his first volume of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published while he was still an undergraduate. After a bit at Columbia University he migrated to the States, to try his hand and guitar as a folk singer. Years of touring, five years of solitude as a Buddhist monk, and various publicly announced financial disparities later, here we are, wrapping up a year of unexpected Cohen revival. 2008 marks covers of "Hallelujah" making the UK Christmas charts #1 and #2, Cohen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his first live tour in 15 years.

Unlike some of my good blogger-friends, I don't have any truly touching stories about my experiences with Cohen. (Well, maybe one, which I'll get to.) His music wasn't of my generation; and thus I can't tell you much about the days I spent smoking cigarettes in the morning, listening to "Bird on a Wire" with an old girlfriend named Marylou, even though I'd love to. In truth, I came to Cohen through a friend who's now living, where else, in Montreal. I remember seeing a copy of "Songs of Love and Hate" perched by his record player, the white block letters swollen with profundity in their surrounding blackness. Later, I think the progression naturally went from Dylan to Cohen, and I think the first song I really got into (with the exclusion of Buckley's version of "Hallelujah") was "I'm Your Man". Something about the synth line, the off-putting moonly jig of the thing, and the unrelenting woos of a desperate wise man. Since then, I've come around to holy jems like "Chelsea Hotel No.2", "Suzanne", "Stranger Song", and of course "Hallelujah".

"Hallelujah" is timely to write about because, for one, it resonates on the religious front, and thus well with Christmas, and two, because it's simply a mind blowing, holy (in the broadest, most artful sense of the word) song. It took Cohen two years to write it. The first line's a reference to I Samuel 16:23 in the Bible, and it sets the tone for the rest to come:

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, Do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor Fall, The major lift,
The baffled king composing hallelujah.

The baffled king composing hallelujah. From the age of ten to fourteen, I lived in Montreal with my father. I have various memories of him, but one in particular recalls the big Gothic churches the city boasts. For a few years on Christmas Eve he would take me to midnight mass, and I would sit there watching the procession, vaguely bored, but also intrigued enough by the ceremonial spirit that seemed to echo like sound around the cavernous worship room. Afterward we would simply walk home, trudging through the fresh snow, maybe sipping a hot chocolate on the way. I'm not sure what my father was trying to get across on these single-night-of-the-year expeditions; but looking back, I don't know if I can resent him for it. We might have talked about mass, about religion. I don't remember these possibilities. What I do remember is simply going, willfully going, maybe out of a certain curiosity we both shared. A joint sense of trying to orient, of trying to comprehend holiness and sanctity, on the holiest night of the year.

On one of the last occasions that we spoke, I wrote him an email outlining, in arduous and probably aloof terms, some of my passions, recent doings, etc. I glossed over my ever evolving appreciation of music, and certain musicians. In response, he recommended listening to a "Canadian musician from Montreal" named Leonard Cohen. I read the words with painful vexation and offense. To nobody or myself I concluded: of course I know who Leonard Cohen is; shows how anachronistic and failing your perception of your own son is. Looking back, I wonder if that reaction was more a measure of my own shortcomings. Tonight, wherever he is, I think I'm big enough to appreciate the difference, and start awing at sanctity again. I am ever grateful for his presence on me in childhood, and his hard and silent lessons. Hallelujah.


Destroyer - Every Christmas (2000)

Harold Arlen & Leo Reisman's Orchestra - Stormy Weather (1933)

The Chairs - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel Cover)(2008)

Matt Pond PA - Snow Day (2005)

Frank Sinatra - White Christmas (1957)

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah (1984)

Bob Dylan - Absolutely Sweet Marie (1966)