Brad Carlin and Homeward Bound Perform Anthem by Leonard Cohen, 3/28/21

The chorus of this song (“there is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in”) was the recurring theme of the services at Good Sam UMC throughout Lent 2021. Stephanie wove the idea into her reflections, while Christian wove different recordings of the song throughout the online services. We were honored to be asked to record the full song for Palm Sunday, as a way of sort of tieing this up with a bow just prior to Easter. You’ll see Christian uses a lot of the images we’d seen throughout Lent, including pictures of the fire at Walker UMC that Rev Walter Lockhart talked about.

As the lead singer on this one, I wanted to be true to the Leonard Cohen original, but also as authentic as possible. The melody is so low that I decided to do the first half in Cohen’s bullfrog croak and then take it up an octave after that. This made for an interesting contrast with Susan and Heather’s backing vocals. Oh, and the hat was a nod to Cohen as well. It was left at church a generation ago (when men still wore hats to church), and like many odds and ends there, it wound up in the band room.