I remember 40 years or so ago when "Saturday Night Live" came on the air and more than anything I remember what a phenomenon it was.
I was 25, and Saturday night was the big night to go out, either to the movies or to a nightclub. The bars in D.C. were open till 2 a.m., but it was amazing how many times we went home early -- or didn't go out at all -- so that we could see SNL.
It was sort of a goofy show at the start with all sorts of different things, including Mr. Bill, short films and even occasional standup comedy. But when SNL realized the comic talent in the cast -- John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Chevy Chase and others, sketch comedy took over.
In the decades since, star after star has come out of SNL. The show itself rarely has the buzz it used to have back then. I certainly don't recall either of my children -- now both in their 30s -- watching it.
Occasionally, though, it still strikes a note. Usually that happens during presidential campaigns, and this fall with Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon portraying Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, SNL made it into the zeitgeist again.
It was pretty obvious no one at SNL saw a realistic possibility Trump would win. I can't argue with that. I never imagined him winning. I think it was a little after after midnight on election night when I read that the New York Times, which had given Trump a 16 percent chance of winning, had upped that to 90 percent.
The one thought that struck me was reminiscent of a line from the movie "Secretariat," when late in the Belmont Stakes Secretariat just ran away from second-place Sham. With a quarter-mile, Secretariat went from neck and neck to 20 lengths ahead en route to 31.
 |
| Impossible. |
"That's impossible."
I'm not going to comment on the election here, but I do remember wondering what SNL would say about it. How can you find humor in what happened?
What they did was perfect.
McKinnon, who had played Clinton to perfection for a year or more, was alone on stage with a grand piano. Dressed as Hillary but not really playing the role, she sang Leonard Cohen's magnificent 1984 song, "Hallelujah."
She sang beautifully, and the fact she seemed near tears at times only added to the emotionality. "Hallelujah" is a magnificent song, although it seems as much about lost love as praise. Cohen himself said this:
"This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can … reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.'”
The late Jeff Buckley's version is considered the best.
The lyrics that hit me like a sledgehammer and carried me back to the pain of my first marriage breaking up in the late '70s were the third verse.
"But baby I've been here before, I've seen this room and I've walked this floor. You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya. And I've seen your flag on the marble arch and love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah ..."
Nearly 40 years later and happily married for the last 24 years, when I think back to those days in 1979, I still ache inside.
Yes, it is a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
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