VIDEO: It’s A Cold And It’s A Broken Hallelujah

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3279 articles for us.

70 Comments

    • Nah brah this fanfic that shit in your heart post break up reading fanfic to distract yourself but ended up rilly wrecking yourself sad.
      Reading a dead dove of sads while you’re already saaaaaaad.

    • That’s exactly how i feel. It’s like the country broke up with me and I didn’t see it coming.

  3. God, she genuinely sounds like she’s about to cry by the end of it. Which makes sense because I was misty within 30 seconds and full on weeping by a minute into it.

    On a slightly lighter note, I had no idea she could sing! I love her so much. ♥

  5. Sobbed from beginning to end. I love Kate McKinnon so much. I am so sad. I have so many feelings.
    But I love that SNL chose to do this. It seems fitting in all the ways.

  6. I really, truly was not expecting to cry when I watched SNL tonight, but here we are. I’m impressed that they managed to pay tribute to both Hillary’s legacy and Leonard Cohen in the same cold open – along with commenting on the election results and acknowledging the emotional tone of this moment in history.

    I’m also glad that Kate got to sing this tribute to one of her idols on national television. What a bittersweet moment that must have been for her.

  7. Watched this four times already. Sadly a perfect choice and reflecting what we’re all feeling now.

  9. Kate McKinnon is an angel and all but this is the same TV show that let Trump host literally last year…

  10. Im too tired to tie my thoughts together.

    1. This is why representation matters.

    2. We sang Hallelujah at the vigil at the White House tonight too.

    3. I saw what you did there Late Mackinnon, going up instead of down at the end of Hallelujah. It’s okay, you don’t need to be a technically perfect singer.

  13. This gave me the cleansing, cathartic cry I’ve needed so desperately this week.
    I am still angry. I am still grieving. But at least now I can see the energy I’ll need to fight productively on the horizon.

  17. I was in the middle of watching this when I opened autostraddle. The opening was every emotion I’ve felt this week, and I sobbed

  18. I’m hoping that right after she did this, she went off stage and Leslie Jones showered her in hugs and puppies

  20. She was THE breakout star of the “Big Gay Sketch Show” on Logo for good reason. This is absolutely breathtaking. So glad SNL scooped her up.

  21. BFF is planning her “shotgun” wedding (they’ve been engaged for a couple years and are throwing the wedding together in a month just in case) next to me on the couch.

    Kate McKinnon: *sings my favorite song*
    Kate McKinnon: I’m not giving up, and neither should you.
    Me: We should get marrieeeeed.
    BFF: WHAT?!
    Me: No, me and Kate McKinnon! God!

  22. I feel like obligated to rain on my face but only one audio stimulation gets my tears, what few of them I am able to produce.
    Crying without tears is like dry heaves so I’m kind of shutting off and playing it off with humor.

  23. I think I’m going to have to psych myself up to watch the video, because just reading the little description of it made me cry.

  24. I was 15 when a girl sat on my bed and sang this in front of our group of friends at camp. I had probably heard it before, but that moment made this song magical. I fell in love with that girl in the way that only not-out-to-themselves teenage girls fall in love. I listened to the song on repeat wondering how I could make her my best friend, and on the way home my mom asked me why I was so happy, and I told her I had fallen in “friendship love”. Yeah, I hadn’t, which became apparent when we kissed a year later and I slowly came out to myself and then to her. We’re only close friends right now, but whenever I hear this song I can’t help but wonder if I gave up too soon. That, and the fact that Hillary came so close, is what is making me cry buckets right now.

    • Falling in “friendship love” is what I will call it from now on. Thank you.

      Also, in my experience, if you’re wondering if you may have given up too soon, it might mean that you never actually gave up. (That said, never listen to any of my relationship advice. Ever.)

  28. this made me cry for the first time since the result, I’m not even from the US but i didn’t realise how much I needed to cry about it.
    Poor Kate, poor everyone. the positive that i’m holding onto is that now we realise just how much work there is to be done, and people are rallying and showing strength and love and solidarity, and we will persevere.
    ‘I’m not giving up and neither should you’ I kind of want that tattooed on me.

  29. I have cried everyday since Tuesday, all different types of cries. But this was the first soothing cry, like someone was putting a salve on my broken shattered heart.

  34. This video is the best tribute to Leonard Cohen because it’s powerful enough to displace Shrek as my first association with the song

    • reading these comments is mostly just making me tear up more, but this one was the first to make me smile.

  35. I was wondering how SNL and, more importantly, Kate McKinnon were going to handle Trump’s win in the episode after the election. It didn’t seem like it would be appropriate to make light of it in a comedy sketch. This, however, is perfect. Beautiful, emotional, powerful.

  37. This made me cry.

    And also this poem what I just found:

    As I Walked Out One Evening

    W. H. Auden, 1907 – 1973

    As I walked out one evening,
    Walking down Bristol Street,
    The crowds upon the pavement
    Were fields of harvest wheat.

    And down by the brimming river
    I heard a lover sing
    Under an arch of the railway:
    ‘Love has no ending.

    ‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
    Till China and Africa meet,
    And the river jumps over the mountain
    And the salmon sing in the street,

    ‘I’ll love you till the ocean
    Is folded and hung up to dry
    And the seven stars go squawking
    Like geese about the sky.

    ‘The years shall run like rabbits,
    For in my arms I hold
    The Flower of the Ages,
    And the first love of the world.’

    But all the clocks in the city
    Began to whirr and chime:
    ‘O let not Time deceive you,
    You cannot conquer Time.

    ‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
    Where Justice naked is,
    Time watches from the shadow
    And coughs when you would kiss.

    ‘In headaches and in worry
    Vaguely life leaks away,
    And Time will have his fancy
    To-morrow or to-day.

    ‘Into many a green valley
    Drifts the appalling snow;
    Time breaks the threaded dances
    And the diver’s brilliant bow.

    ‘O plunge your hands in water,
    Plunge them in up to the wrist;
    Stare, stare in the basin
    And wonder what you’ve missed.

    ‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
    The desert sighs in the bed,
    And the crack in the tea-cup opens
    A lane to the land of the dead.

    ‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
    And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
    And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
    And Jill goes down on her back.

    ‘O look, look in the mirror,
    O look in your distress:
    Life remains a blessing
    Although you cannot bless.

    ‘O stand, stand at the window
    As the tears scald and start;
    You shall love your crooked neighbour
    With your crooked heart.’

    It was late, late in the evening,
    The lovers they were gone;
    The clocks had ceased their chiming,
    And the deep river ran on.

    (retrieved from https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-walked-out-one-evening)

    • also my favourite version. my parents used to play her album hymns of the 49th parallel whenever we were in hard times. this song and her voice brings me back so many emotions.

  41. This week has been awful, but at least Kate McKinnon is perfect. Did anyone catch the wink? The wink gave me hope amidst the tears

  43. Yep- Kate Mckinnon crush just got bigger!
    I really want to see Kate Mckinnon’s Merkel do a take.on Trump… was proud of Angie’s congrats-with-attitude response this week!

  45. I’ve been watched this far more times than I care to admit but every time I feel like a little piece of my shattered being is glued back in place. Who knew an snl cold open could be so damn important.

  46. Yes a framed still from this will look lovely on a wall of the house that my gf has agreed can be entirely wallpapered in pictures of her as Holtzmann. The only doubt about the wisdom of said house… will she be too creeped out once we convince her to visit?

  47. I haven’t been on the internet since Wednesday morning, but this was exactly what I needed upon venturing back. Cleansing was a great word for it. So beautiful and sad and full of hope. I didn’t think I’d want to see comedy about the election, and I’m so glad Kate McKinnon was at SNL to give me (and her and so many of us) a balm and a good cry instead.

    I wish I could give Hillary a hug, but I’m glad she has this to watch, too.

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