Hallelujah

The PsychoChicken's interesting post on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah - a response to a radio show in the UK (those of you in NZ, give me a yell if you want it - it's around the torrents...), was going to get a quick comment from me. After starting typing I realised it wasn't going to be a small comment.

So I've moved proceedings to here.

For reasons that will become obvious shortly, this is a tune that means a lot to me.

I first became aware of this music through the Buckley version. And to this day it is my favourite version. The passion, the fragility and yet the power in his voice, brilliant. Again something PC and I agree on. That album is perfect.
Discovering the Cohen original was something of a shock, it is significantly different in vibe and focus to the Buckley. And there are a few versions by Cohen which differ in quality. To my mind the shorter, 4'39min version is definitive for Cohen.
His version seems more bitter, with a weirdly lounge touch (and no, I don't like the backing singers) to the positive redemptive quality of Buckley. Cohen, in addition to bitter and bile, seems to imbue the lyrics with cynicism. It seems to me that in his version the protagonist is a loser, with no hope of redemption, and is simply sinking further down. Buckley, with the delicate guitar intro, indicates where he wants the song to go, it's sad, but it's positive. His protagonist doesn't want to be dragged down, rather he wants life but realises it's a battle to win. The ending is where the power kicks in - but thats in the live version.
A video for the Buckley version is here.
A video from the current Cohen tour here. More redemption here...


Like Neil, I don't get any Christian references in the track. I suspect, given the bitter cynical Cohen version, the title is more a failure of joy. Not a redemptive God reference. Buckley seems to be using Hallelujah as union between the characters.

Longer versions of Buckley's are available on the Sin-E deluxe edition (9'15); L'Olympia (9'35); Bataclan (9'25). Some differences to Grace, but nothing dramatic.

Having dealt, albeit briefly, with the two definitive versions, here's the other versions I have sitting around on the ipod. Randy Newman, his was the version that most people recognise, being on the Shrek movie. As it's Randy Newman, it's very good, powerful, well sung, but lacking the emotive power of the BigTwo.

Female singers: yeah I've got a few versions, but the best is k.d.lang's from her tribute to Canadian songwriters (Hymns of the 49th Parallel). It's her and a piano, and she does have a great voice, and brilliant phrasing. I do rather like this version, her voice has character, and she does a couple of interesting passing notes. The problem with her version, is it's lacking something. It doesn't cut me. There's no passion, no pain, no cynicism, no loss, no redemption. She sings the words, beautifully, but misses the point of the song.

Rufus Wainwright. I think he's the most talented of Clan Wainwright. And his version of H is as good as Cohen's. There are quite a few versions of RW singing H; the most common one is his version on the Shrek soundtrack (I think I've got that round the right way, Newman and Wainwright - one did the soundtrack, one did the movie). But for my money, his definitive version, demonstrating power, fragility, and brilliant support singing by his sister, is from the Leonard Cohen tribute movie 'I'm your man'. Wainwright's slight speech impediment (weak 'w's) seems to increase the Buckley-ness of his version. Again he treats the song as redemptive.

John Cale. Yeah that John Cale. You'd expect him to get this song. And he does. Like Cohen it's more negative (to my ears), he moves it along more than Cohen, there is more redemption than Cohen. But I still think he thinks the protagonist has hit rock bottom, unlike Cohen he see's a future for him. Cale and a piano (seems a common way to approach the song) works well, but strangely I keep wanting more character in the voice. My version is from the Basquiat soundtrack.

So that's my quick n dirty review. There are other versions I have lying around, But nothing to challenge those ones. Buckley's is the definitive version, Cohen and Wainwright come in joint second, mainly due to the entirely different take Cohen has of his song compared to everyone else.

Having written that, I've been pondering it for a bit, and I'm sure I agree with myself. If Cohen had a decent backing track, I think the cynicism of his version may be my favourite. It will be interesting to see what he does with it in January...

It also works well on the harmonium although the triplets don't, so I'm tending to block chord bass n 5th in the left, and triplet/arpeggio/block chord in the right.
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France liked this song. And she liked the Buckley version. She didn't like much of the rest of TheAlbum. Sadly she never really succumbed to my reasoned arguments of how good Grace was (I beat her with AoS, but she was never a huge Marillion fan).
So H was played at her funeral, so it does have emotive value that song. Aside from that layer, the song itself is powerful, no matter what your take (cynical or redemptive), let alone if you feel the need to load some form of religious layer as well - although having listened to Cohen interviews, I really struggle to see how you could load them on this song.
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Other singers I'd be interested in hearing cover this: Steve H, although I doubt he'd make it through to the end sensitive soul that he is. But the way he's singing these days, it could quite easily be the definitive version. He has covered both Cohen (Famous Blue Raincoat) and Buckley (Dream Brother).
Ryan Adams, he does covers well (look at Wonderwall on Love is Hell PtI).

And the leftfield options, Arcade Fire. No seriously, think about them and the power in Funeral. But to put the cat among the pigeons, Justin Timberlake.

Tom Waits could be interesting, I'm thinking it would be more Cohen than Buckley. Tom's characters may have hearts of gold, but their redemption is few and far between.

Here's a Wainwright version, I've just watched a few of his and I really like the way he plays with the tempo, anything from 3'45 to 5'00.



Love, me