Like everyone else I was seething in the days immediately following Trump’s election. But I was surprised and touched by Kate McKinnon‘s SNL performance of Leonard Cohen‘s Hallelujah. The lyrics are about despair and resignation and feeling “cold and broken”, and I thought to myself “wow, this is ballsy…an SNL opener that’s frankly glum and saying “God, this hurts.'”

And then the song ended and McKinnon turned to an MCU camera and said, “I’m not giving up and neither should you.” And with those eight words, the spell was shattered.

Well, maybe there’s a God above / But all I’ve ever learned from love / Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya / And it’s not a cry that you hear at night / It’s not somebody who’s seen the light / It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah / Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah