2005-01-06 - 10:48 a.m.

as we let the year iris open i'm still feeling positive and optimistic. i've been waking up every morning with a smile on my face. unfortunately, i'm also pretty congested and soon have to reach for a kleenex, but nonetheless i'm feelin good.

i'm saving my pennies to traipse across europe so i haven't really been vinyl shopping. in fact, i've been spending most of my time learning new songs and polishing old ones. i'm girding my health so i've been keeping the partying to a minimum.

the deeper we get into the music the more amazed i am by the power of song. sometimes a song just gets hold of me and there's nothing i can do but sing it and sing it until it lets me go. i started casually strumming a chord progression and all of a sudden i was singing a song from the 'grease' soundtrack. i sang that until it turned into 'amazing grace'.

the latest song to grab hold of me has been 'hallelujah'. leonard cohen wrote this song and john cale has made a beautiful cover of this song which i've heard more than the original. the two versions of the song have very different lyrics, but they both seem to have come from mr. cohen's pen. i'm curious about why the more personal and less religious cover has become so much more popular than the original song. k d lang also covers this song as part of her all-canadian covers album.