as small as a world and as large as alone

6:00am January 30, 2015

Dance Me To The End of Love (Leonard Cohen)

CW: Holocaust/Shoah/genocide/antisemitism/death camps/Nazis

I just introduced my mom to Leonard Cohen, thinking some of his songs are really appropriate for grieving yet celebrating life.  Today, she sent me and my brothers (one of whom turns out to be a Cohen fan too) a link to this video.

The content warning is in case you don’t know the song originated with the songwriter thinking about the Nazi death camps.  He says in some ways it’s not important whether listeners understand that or not, because the song can be read in many other ways, but I figured my Jewish followers would be less traumatized if forewarned.  (Although my guess is the clues in the lyrics are far more obvious to Jewish people than Gentiles.  As a Gentile, I picked up on enough to check up on its meaning, but not enough to guess the meaning accuraely.)

Lyrics under cut:

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ‘til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

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