We begin with Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire.” Cohen said it derives directly from a Hebrew prayer sung on the evening of the Day of Atonement — a catalogue of “who by fire, who by sword, who by water” — and he turns it into his own question: who is it that decides who will live and who will die? That’s prayer at its most naked: not certainty, but asking the question you can’t stop asking, “Who shall I say is calling?”

This is Leonard Cohen and Who By Fire performed live in London in 2008.

Creative Connections

Cohen starts with prayer as ritual — a formal structure built to hold fear.

Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” shifts prayer from the temple to the everyday. Christine McVie said it was about “nobody and everybody,” more like “a little anthem,” and “like a little prayer almost.” That matters: sometimes prayer isn’t asking for an answer. Sometimes it’s offering something — a small vow, a shared calm, a way of saying, “you’re not alone.”

This is Fleetwood Mac and “Songbird”.

Creative Connections

A prayer “for everybody” can sound gentle — but prayer also has another mode: surrender.

Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will” is, in his words, “an old prayer” that came to him to rewrite — and it’s “about surrendering.” Not giving up, exactly — more like releasing the fantasy of control. A prayer that says: I will stop pretending I’m the author of everything, and I’ll ask to be aligned with something larger than my own will.

This again is from Cohen’s 2008 tour stop in London and I’m sure you’ll agree that any opportunity to hear the sublime Webb Sisters is an opportunity worth taking. Sit back, close your eyes, and – surrender.

Creative Connections

No apologies for having two Cohen songs in one episode of Creative Connections. That was a prayer of the highest order.

Surrender may sound quiet, but sometimes prayer is loud — a wish thrown at the sky.

Creed’s “Higher” begins in dreaming — being “guided to another world” — and Scott Stapp makes the prayer angle explicit saying he wanted to “create heaven on earth,” and later recognised how “naïve” and ego-wrapped that idea was. Then comes the warning: “Be careful what you wish for,” because your prayers might get answered. That’s prayer as desire — and the realisation that getting what you ask for can change you.

This is Creed and “Higher”.

Creative Connections

If “Higher” is prayer as wish, Springsteen gives us prayer as hope under threat.

He described “Across The Border” as “a beautiful dream — the kind you have before you fall asleep, where beauty still feels possible and, in that possibility of beauty, there is still hope”. He also described it as, “like a prayer or a dream you have the night before you’re going to take a dangerous journey. The singer seeks a home where his love will be rewarded, his faith restored, where a tenuous peace and hope may exist”.

Prayer here isn’t doctrine — it’s the mind trying to hold onto hope when “hope” is the risky option.

Creative Connections

That was Bruce Springsteen and “Across The Border”.

Springsteen’s prayer here is personal — a dream of safety before danger.

Billy Bragg then shifts prayer into something collective: not “God save me,” but “we can save ourselves.” Bragg said “I Keep Faith” carries an important message: singer-songwriters can’t change the world — only the audience can. And he draws faith and inspiration from them. In some ways, he says, it’s a love song to the audience.

That’s prayer reimagined as solidarity — faith placed in people – and this is Billy Bragg and “I Keep Faith”.

Creative Connections

Thanks for putting faith in people, Billy.

We end with the most stripped-down version of prayer: the one you speak in a troubled moment.

John Mellencamp said “Sometimes There’s God” isn’t really about religion — it’s about how one can find God within themselves in troubled moments. That’s prayer turned inward: not waiting for rescue, not performing belief, but discovering that the thing you call “God” might also be the part of you that steadies itself and keeps going.

Here’s John Mellencamp and “Sometimes There’s God”.

Creative Connections