Loreena McKennitt's musical response to Dante's Inferno -- a soul's long journey through landscapes of sorrow before emerging into the light of the stars -- is a song of remembrance, melancholy but still beautiful and ultimately hopeful:
(According to the liner notes, the rich chorus of voices that bookends the song is excerpted from "Alleluia, Behold the Bridegroom" on the album Russian Easter by the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir.)
I thought a lot about this song years ago as I was finishing Philip Pullman's extraordinary fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials (itself a response to another religious literary epic, Milton's Paradise Lost). Without saying too much about it -- in case anyone intends to read it or is following the excellent HBO adaptation -- two characters must part in the end, and one of them reflects on having loved the other so deeply: "She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever." That passage and image, the treasured bruise, has stayed with me. And in the movie in my mind (I seem to like providing soundtracks to the endings of imaginary films, don't I?) this seemed the perfect song to speak to that moment: the act of committing one's love to memory, forever.
McKennitt's lyrics speak to OUR moment, as well:
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me.
Be well.
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Listen to this and previous Songs of the Day here.