Greatest Love Songs Ever: #7 “Dance Me to the End of Love”
By Tom Quiner, Board President, Pulse Life Advocates
The late, great Canadian songwriter, Leonard Cohen, is best known for his classic song, “Hallelujah.” It is a very fine song, a classic of an odd genre called a ‘secular hymn.’ But despite its seeming profundity, it doesn’t hold a candle to his awe-inspiring 1984 classic, “Dance Me to the End of Love,” the most gut-wrenching love song I’ve ever encountered.
The soulful lyrics and Jewish-inflected music intertwine to take you on a journey you may not want to take: into the very heart of love. Culturally, love is a positive word, one we associate with good feelings. But love is painful, too. The essence of Christianity is the cross, Christ’s example of sacrificial love. Or as Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta said it, “Love til it hurts.”
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“Dance Me to the End of Love’s” lyrics should be interpreted on two levels: the creative and the destructive.
Creatively, the poet in Cohen tells a tale of romance, sensuality, and devotion, depicting the dance of love as a glowing journey into old age, leading ultimately to the painful loss of one’s spouse.
Watch the poignant music video above as devoted older couples dance with photos of their younger selves in the background.
Watch as Cohen sings about the beginning of love,
“Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on,
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long.”
Watch as Cohen sings of the fruit of creative love:
“Dance me to the children who are asking to be born,
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn.”
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Metaphor abounds in Cohen songs and beg to be unpacked by its listeners, which leads us to the sad, destructive origins of the song: the holocaust. Cohen heard a horrific holocaust account of Jewish musicians being forced to play as their fellow Jews were marched to the gas chambers for their execution.
Such an ugly defilement of an art form that is all about beauty. Said Cohen:
“… in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on … And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt.”
Cohen demonstrates his poetic brilliance with the phrase, “dance me to your beauty with a burning violin.”
What does he mean by beauty in this context? He explained,
Beauty is “the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation.”
And then he links this ‘consummation’ to romantic love:
“But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved.”
The poet explains that this word is “able to embrace all passionate activity.”
In a similar way, the phrase the “passion of the Christ” refers to our Lord’s intense suffering on our behalf, and yet the same word, ‘passion,’ can take on positive, even noble, meaning, in our every day lives.
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In the book of Revelation, Jesus says, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Although Cohen wasn’t a Christian, he appreciated Him:
“I’m very fond of Jesus Christ. He may be the most beautiful guy who walked the face of the earth. Any guy who says, “Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek: has got to be a figure of unparalleled generosity and insight and madness … a man who declared himself to stand among the thieves, the prostitutes and the homeless. His position cannot be comprehended. It is an inhuman generosity. A generosity that would overthrow the world if it was embraced, because nothing would weather that compassion. I’m not trying to alter the Jewish view of Jesus Christ. But to me, in spite of what I know about the history of legal Christianity, the figure of the man has touched me.”
Inspired by the man-God he could not fully embrace, Cohen wrote a song that transformed hate into love. What a remarkable feat!
And if you’ll bear with me another minute, return to the line above,
“Dance me to the children who are asking to be born.”
Abortion is a resounding NO to their request, because it is a denial of Love. It corrupts the dance, that is our life.
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Cohen was a complex figure who forced his girlfriend and muse, Marianne Ihlen, to have five abortions, and yet as he grew as an artist and saw the destruction left in the wake of the sexual revolution he once embraced, his perspective seemed to change. Check out these lyrics from his 1992 song, “The Future”:
“Give me back the Berlin wall,
Give me Stalin and St. Paul,
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima.
Destroy another fetus now,
We don’t like children anyhow,
I’ve seen the future, baby,
It is murder.”
To me, “dance me to the end of love” is a story of a marriage, of faithfulness, and devotion to the one you love.” An old-fashioned notion that is timeless in its beauty and truth.
I love this song so much, and yet it’s only #7 on my list of the Greatest Love Songs Ever. Imagine that, six songs are even better, as if that’s even possible! Check back next week for a song written 82 years ago which to this day is still one of the most popular wedding first dance songs.
In the meantime, remember that love is the antidote to abortion. Support Pulse Life Advocates’ educational pro-life outreach with your gift today. Thank-you, and Merry-Christmas!
