Sometimes, I listen to music as I write. This past week, I was looking for a song for my new heroine to hum as her world caved in around her and I realized that my books have theme songs.
My first book resonated with "Demons" by Imagine Dragons.
For my second book, "Hallelujah" has become the chosen song.
Things aren't perfect with my heroine. She struggles with loss. Her thoughts are plagued by PTSD flashbacks. Her life will never be the same. Yet, she goes on and puts one foot in front of the other. And even though, the song brings her to tears, she'll still sing "Hallelujah."
"Hallelujah" was written by Leonard Cohen. He was a Jewish man and included Old Testament references in the first two stanzas about King David and Samson.
(Incidentally, the earliest record of music therapy is the account of David playing his harp for King Saul to quiet his mind from a melancholy, depressive spirit. David was the world's first musical therapist per David M. Greenberg Ph.D. in an article on the Psychology Today website posted April 27, 2017.)
Cohen's lyrics depict the struggles of life, feelings of doubt, and painful inner conflict.
“This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled,” Cohen has said, “but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’ That regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you embrace the thing and you just say, ‘Hallelujah!'" (from "How Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' Brilliantly Mingled Sex, Religion" posted online by Rolling Stone, December 3, 2012)
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
Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah
Click the link below for "Hallelujah" sung by Leonard Cohen
Or click the link below for "Hallelujah" sung by Pentatonix
Comments