You ever have that weird mental jump when two separate things suddenly become connected in your mind? And then you can’t seem separate them again, ever?

With me, it’s the song “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen and “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I know: “Where the heck did that come from?”

Perhaps it’s the effect of an English degree mixed with a fondness for music. Maybe its the strange melancholy of both pieces. Or perhaps it’s Cohen’s reference to hair and the way the song’s lines build within each verse. After all, the Coleridge lines that snagged me were: “And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread. For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

Now, in my head, I’m trying to fit “Kubla Khan” into “Halleluja” as a filk.  (A filk, by the way, is a loosely-defined “folk song” that reuses the music and possibly the lyrical structure of another song, but with unrelated content).

I’ll let you all know if it works. 🙂