Free

“Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free”

The above lyric is in a song I have listened to a lot lately. I don’t know why, but I love it. It is written and performed by Leonard Cohen. My favourite version however is by Kate Wolf.

The first image of a solitary bird, sitting precariously on a wire, for me, captures the emptiness that so often comes with freedom.

However, the scene in my head that plays out when I think of a disheveled drunk surrounded by orderly choir singers, is one that brings a smile to my face every time.

I picture him unshaven, dirty. Perhaps he even has a suspect bottle in his hand. Maybe he just stumbled across the choir and jumped in without permission. Maybe he’s a regular, but on this day life got the upper hand and he slipped up. But hey, he showed up, that has to count for something right?

He’s in the back row but hardly invisible. There’s something in the song that he spontaneously connects with, and his spirit flees the very same fog that led him to drink. I imagine the song is “Amazing Grace”

“Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me….”

Who better to sing this song than a wretch?

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care what the other choir singers think. He doesn’t care what the spectators think. He doesn’t care what the choir leader is doing. He is off key, he is off time, he is too loud. He is singing his guts out. He is fucking perfect.

Everyone will look at him, what a mess. What a disaster.

“What’s a guy like that doing, singing in a choir?” they may ask.

What the hell do they know? In that moment he is FREE.

If you read this far, thank you.

Tris