Tag: Newtown

“The Voice” Brings Out Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” For Sandy Hook Tribute

the voice sandy hook

Last night on NBC’s The Voice, the show opened with the contestants backing up the coaches — Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, CeeLo Green and Christina Aguilera — singing Leonard Cohen‘s “Hallelujah” in a tribute to those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

The coaches, contestants, host Carson Daily, and Social Media Correspondent Christina Milian held up signs with the names of the 26 children and adults killed at the school as well as a card for Nancy Lanza, the mother of the mentally ill shooter (although it appears they opted not to hold up a card for the young Adam Lanza who also killed himself).

I am usually not a fan of the way people pull out “Hallelujah” as a tribute to those who have died. For example, I have seen awards shows use the famous Jeff Buckley recording to accompany a video of artists who passed away. The beautiful song is often overused, and despite the title and biblical references in the lyrics, the meaning of the song is not really as religious as many think, touching on love, obsession, and sex. Leonard Cohen has stated that the song “explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist, and all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have equal value.”

That said, The Voice rendition and their selection of which verses to sing was appropriate and one of the few times the song has been used so effectively in tribute. So as much as I don’t want to admit it, it is a beautiful tribute on what has become one of my favorite music competition shows. Check it out.

As Saturday Night Live did this weekend after its children’s choir “Silent Night” tribute opening, after the opening, The Voice went back to the usual show.

What do you think of the tribute on The Voice? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Did That Voice Inside You Say I’ve Heard It All Before?

    woods I am starting to feel overwhelmed with all of the news reporting of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

    Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio,
    Did you try to read the writing on the wall?

    There are all of the arguments about gun control. There are the media interviews with the people who knew the troubled briefcase-carrying kid who became the shooter, Adam Lanza, although I know we probably will not use the information about him to gain any new understanding about helping kids like him before these tragedies occur. There are the Internet rumors, where I see over and over again on Facebook and Twitter how Morgan Freeman wrote an essay about the tragedy when it was so obviously a hoax (but he eventually had to waste his time telling us it was a hoax). Others question whether there will be copycat shootings. And then there is the struggle to give some meaning to the fact that around the same time a mentally ill man in China attacked kids at a school with a knife, injuring 22 students.

    Day after day another Momma’s crying,
    She’s lost her precious child

    And there are the heartbreaking stories about all the kids and adults killed in the shooting as the funerals begin. I keep thinking how many of those families go home every night to a Christmas tree with wrapped presents that no longer have a recipient. And then I cannot take any more and I turn off the TV for awhile.

    But we also realize that we have been here before, and not only do I not have any answers, nobody else does either.

    Did that voice inside you say
    I’ve seen this all before?
    It’s like Deja Vu all over again.

    Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty released “DeJa Vu (All Over Again)” as a title track on his album of the same name in 2004, apparently taking the title from the great baseball philosopher Yogi Berra. The song was written to point out similarities between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war, and it stands as one of Fogerty’s best songs in recent years.

    Unfortunately, the song’s lyrics fit more than just the war, including the recent tragedy.

    Maybe fake Morgan Freeman was right that we should just turn off the news for a little while, perhaps while we crank up the music.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    In a School, a School, a Place Where We Send Our Precious Children

    So sad, so sad the news
    Come our way this morning;
    Like a bad bad dream,
    A dream that you’d never even talk about;
    In a school, a school
    A place where we send our precious children;
    The only place of innocence the world might ever let them know.

    kidsprayer

    As another heart-breaking story breaks today about a person with a gun shooting kids in a school right after there was another person shooting people in a mall, we see the usual pattern of questions being asked. How many? Who? Why? While we will eventually get some answers on the first two questions, we never find an answer for the last question.

    On days like this, I find some comfort in Dan Bern‘s beautiful song, “Kid’s Prayer.” In the song — written after the Thurston High School shooting in Springfield, Oregon in June 1998 — Bern asks the questions about what leads to such random violence but ultimately concludes that the only thing we can do comes down to taking care of our kids the best we can.

    There are things you know,
    Your kids will never know;
    There’s places they live,
    Where you will never go;
    So dance with your kids,
    Paint with your kids,
    Walk with your kids . . .

    The above Dan Bern performance is from Housing Works on March 26, 2004, available for free download at archive.org. And you may watch the video directed by Peter Franchella below.

    Be safe and hug your loved ones today.

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