Cracks

Song story & origins

Introduction

Cracks appears on Gravitate (2018), though I first released an earlier version in 2015 on a limited project by fellow Center for Courage & Renewal facilitators. Coming back to it for Gravitate, I reopened the session, made several lyrical and mix refinements, and re-orchestrated the strings so the arrangement would better hold the song’s central idea: what is broken in us is also what is open in us.

Where the song came from

I wrote Cracks with Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” echoing in the background—the paradox that imperfection is not a flaw to be hidden but a doorway for light. In my Courage & Renewal work, I spend a lot of time with people in circles of honest conversation, using songs and poems to open shared space. That’s the spirit of this lyric: not a plea for polish, but an invitation to offer what’s true, even if it’s rough at the edges. What is broken in me is also what is open in me—open to pain, yes, but also open to beauty, connection, and grace.

The song is also about identity and music’s peculiar agency in my life. The second stanza says it plainly: it’s song that opens the cracks. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are how I’m “split apart” in the best way—how something hidden becomes briefly visible.

What the song is saying

“Unmusical days” are the ones when I move through the world shut off from beauty—nose to the grindstone, boxes checked, senses dulled. The lyric argues that to “stay intact” (buttoned down, guarded) is not to act on beauty. Vulnerability—allowing the cracks—lets inspiration interrupt our plans and redirect our work.

The bridge shifts to an image I grew up with: stained glass. My childhood church had abstract windows—not scenes, but mosaics of broken shards that made their own shapes. I remember being mesmerized by how the pieces, irregular and singular, became colored light. That’s the hope in the line “released at last into beauty, like colored glass”: that a life, broken many times, might still refract something lovely.

The song closes by returning to the opening confession and lingering on “my true heart.” The point isn’t to glamorize pain; it’s to tell the truth that our truest hearts are also broken hearts—and that honesty can be a gift to others.

Music and arrangement

The recording is intentionally simple: two or three acoustic guitars at the center, with strings quietly orchestrated underneath to lay a sustained bed for the vocal. For Gravitate I revisited the earlier track, did fresh mixing, and refined the dynamics so the arrangement would rise into the bridge (the “colored glass” section) and then wind down into a long, gentle fade on “my true heart.” It’s a song built to breathe.

Why it stays with me

Because it keeps teaching me how to live and make art: offer what’s real, cracked places included; receive the broken offerings of others with gratitude; and keep my days musical enough to notice the beauty that’s already in the room. When I forget—when time is tight or I don’t feel brave—this song helps me open back up.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx

From the Being Human journal

Cracks was written in homage to Leonard Cohen’s famous lines from Anthem, “There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.” Cohen claimed brokenness as holy. I think a willingness to BE broken by beauty is a willingness to be open to the full experience life has to offer.

Source: Being Human: The Songs — Album & Journal (2020) · p. 31

Being Human · The Songs

Reflection & journaling

Theme: Vulnerability

Choose a question or word or line(s) from the lyrics to guide your meditation or journaling as you listen.

1. In what situations or with what people and I willing to be vulnerable?
2. What causes me to be less concerned with being hurt somehow that with not being open and real?
3. How do my past hurts push me to be more self-protective?
4. How do they help me open up?

Source: Being Human: The Songs — Album & Journal (2020) · p. 31