On Post: Hallelujah

Date: January 17, 2014

I got such a kick out of writing this one. It was just a lot of fun, a total lark if you will.

Obviously, I just focused on the stanza (not technically the term, I confess, but it conveys what I mean) that references the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah. In case you are unfamiliar in it, Samson derives his power from his hair (well, sort of, but that’s theological enough for our purposes) which he eventually admits to Delilah. She, having been bribed by the Philistines who hated him for the destruction he wrought on them (which he did because they misled him into believing they would allow him to marry the woman he loved who was a Philistine), cut his hair and alerted her corrupters to his new weakness. They kidnap him, blind him, and force him into years of slavery.

In this entry, I took those bones and wrapped them in noir trappings. The Philistines are now the Philstine crime family, Delilah is a femme fatale, and Samson is an enforcer for a rival gang. The female detective who interrogates Delilah is not a pastiche of anyone from the original Bible verses, in case you were curious.

As far as why I chose to do it, it was just one of those a-ha moments. I love that section of the song so it always jumps out of me and then my mind just went to her getting arrested for it. Once I had that idea, the noir piece was immediate. I wanted an interrogation and I wanted to play with that kind of language. And, as I said to start, it was great fun to do so.