A Hymn for Election Day.

Last updated on: November 6, 2012 at 7:48 am by Christopher Smith

A Hymn for Election Day. 2012-11-06T07:48:42-05:00 Christopher Smith

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It’s probably a sin of the deepest sacrilege to connect a song of this extraordinary beauty with Election Day…

But I can’t stop thinking about how relevant it is…

Here’s just a few snippets:

“What a beautiful piece of heartache
This has all turned out to be
Lord knows we’ve learned the hard way
All about healthy apathy”

…

“Nothing like sleeping on a bed of nails
Nothing much here but our broken dreams
Oh, but baby, if all else fails
Nothing is ever quite what it seems”

It’s a song about the ways that we get the crap kicked out of us — and, I would argue on this election day, out of the land we love — by life, and that persistent “really real” hope that lurks just below the surface. It is the modern day equivalent of Julian of Norwich’s prayer that whatever happens: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” And that is a word we need to hear today.

Listen to this hymn, Over the Rhine puts it much more eloquently than I could…

Download a free and legal live mp3 of this song from the Live Music Archive…

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