Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen (Live in London) + Rare footage of him performing 'Suzanne'

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By greenpagan

Tue Feb 5, 2013 2:09 PM

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"Hallelujah" is a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, originally released on his studio album Various Positions (1984). Achieving little initial success, the song found greater popular acclaim through a cover by John Cale, which later formed the basis for a cover by Jeff Buckley. It is the subject of the full-length book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" (2012) by Alan Light. In a New York Times review of the book, Janet Maslin praises the book and the song, noting that "Cohen spent years struggling with his song 'Hallelujah.' . . . He wrote perhaps as many as 80 verses before paring the song down."^[1] Many cover versions have been performed by a large number and broad range of artists, both in recordings and in concert, with over 300 versions known.^[2] The song has also seen significant use in film and television soundtracks, as well as televised talent contests. It is often cited as one of the greatest songs of all time.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]

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Musical Composition & Lyrical Interpretation

"Hallelujah", in its original version, is a song in "6/8 feel", which evokes the styles of both waltz and gospel music. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression follows the lyric "it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift": C, F, G, A minor, F.^[7]

Cohen wrote around 80 draft verses for "Hallelujah", including a writing session during a stay at the Royalton Hotel in New York where he was reduced to sitting on the floor in his underwear, banging his head on the floor.^[8] His original version, as recorded on his Various Positions album, contains several biblical references, most notably evoking the stories of Samson and traitorous Delilah from the Book of Judges as well as the adulterous King David and Bathsheba:^[9] "she cut your hair" and "you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you".^[7]

Following his original 1984 studio-album version, Cohen performed the original song on his world tour in 1985, but live performances during his 1988 and 1993 tours almost invariably contained a quite different set of lyrics with only the last verse being common to the two versions. Numerous artists mix lyrics from both versions, and occasionally make direct lyric changes, such as Rufus Wainwright, a Canadian-American singer, substituting "holy dark" and Allison Crowe, a Canadian singer-songwriter, substituting "Holy Ghost" for "holy dove".

Cohen's lyrical poetry and his view that "many different hallelujahs exist" is reflected in wide-ranging covers with very different intents or tones of speech, allowing the song to be "melancholic, fragile, uplifting [or] joyous" depending on the performer:^[7] The Welsh singer-songwriter John Cale, the first person to record a cover version of the song in 1991, promoted a message of "soberness and sincerity" in contrast to Cohen's dispassionate tone;^[7] The cover by Jeff Buckley, an American singer-songwriter, is more sorrowful and was described by Buckley as "a hallelujah to the orgasm";^[3]^[7] Crowe interpreted the song as a "very sexual" composition that discussed relationships;^[7] Wainwright offered a "purifying and almost liturgical" interpretation to the song;^[7] and Guy Garvey of the British band Elbow anthropomorphised the hallelujah as a "stately creature" and incorporated his religious interpretation of the song into his band's recordings.^[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_%28Leonard_Cohen_song%29

zentake: As the old Newsvine closes shop what better way to send it (her...?) off than with Leonard Cohen's poetic Hallelujah a peaen to Love Life & the simplicity/complexity spectrum of human relationships.

A song/poem appropriate especially for giving thanks. In the battle of existence it always pays to attain some measure of appreciation & reverence for Life itself & what comes with that terrible beautiful territory.

Hallelujah

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah