Light As The Breeze

Light as the Breeze – While these lyrics draw heavily on images of a relationship between a man and a woman, they are not about sex or the relationship between a man and a woman any more than Moby Dick is a story about fishing.
This song is about the creative process: O baby I waited So long for your kiss For something to happen Oh, something like this. In this refrain, Cohen is talking about waiting for the “kiss” of inspiration from the creative Muse that resulted in these lyrics. The medium is truly the message here since the lyrics are about the creative process that goes into writing these very same lyrics. In stanza one (my references here are to each stanza as they appear excluding the above refrain) when the creative muse is present, she provides access to “the universe” (or “intention” or “spirit” or “the mind of God”) without pretense – she appears before you naked but she is ephemeral and elusive – she’s “light as the breeze.” How great or small the insights you get when she opens this portal are up to you but you must recognize who’s in charge – you must be humble. In stanza 2, Cohen kneels “…at the delta / At the alpha and omega” with all its imagery of female anatomy and its references to the cradle of civilization both of which conjure up images of creation and birth. This is where things are created and this is where things end – this is the creative portal. Through this portal, “For something like a second” he is cured and his heart is at ease – he gets the gift of creative access for which he has forgone so much and in which he has invested so much and, as brief as the inspiration is relative to all that he has to go through to receive it, it’s worth it. The reference to “sleeping in your harness” in stanza three refers to the trappings of everyday life that wall you off from the creative process. Wordsworth said (in “Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”): “Earth [the temporal, natural world] doth all she can / To make her foster-child, her inmate Man, / Forget the glories he hath known, / And that imperial palace whence he came.” We sleep-walk in our everyday life while the rich flow of creativity with all its symbolism, insights and meaning is “…the wind going wild in the trees.” Like Wordsworth’s “inmate Man” mankind is not exactly in prison but, like the concept of original sin, we will never be forgiven for losing touch with our spiritual nature – we lost the key. Stanza four recognizes the agony of the creative process where long stretches of effort yield no result – the creative flow is freezing over and Cohen is frustrated. In Stanza five, the creative muse appears again, naked and apparently ready to give Cohen what he wants but that’s just a tease – she’s in control of the process and doesn’t always deliver, even when she makes an appearance. Cohen turns angrily from the muse and the creative process which is both his passion and the bane of his existence. Just as he is giving up, totally discouraged, she appears again, ready to inspire him – she cannot be summoned, she comes and goes as she pleases. In stanza 6, Cohen acknowledges he is a captive to the creative process. The blood on every bracelet may be his blood – the result of subjugating his temporal needs to his pursuit of spiritual or creative enlightenment (“…things undone, worldly activities not attended to…” – from Wordsworth). The muse encourages him to “drink deeply, pilgrim” which, while a religious reference to the Christian sacrament of holy communion is also, in the context of these lyrics, the process of receiving the “sacrament” of creativity (or Spirit). As with the Christian practice of receiving Holy Communion, one must be in a state of “grace” to partake of the creative process which is a fragile one and easily ended if taken for granted. Stanza 7 is a repeat of Stanza 2 followed by the fourth repeat of the refrain to hammer home the reminder that these lyrics are about the process of creating these same lyrics: “O baby I waited / So long for your kiss / For something to happen / Oh, something like this.” And again, Cohen reminds us in Stanza 7 that as brief as the inspiration is relative to all that he gives up to get it, it’s worth it. As long as this creative process results in lyrics like those in this song, I wholeheartedly agree: it’s well worth the effort.