A few months ago I went to see Sarah Slean, a Canadian folk singer. Halfway through her set, she brought out a solo acoustic guitarist and told us that she was going to perform a song that she held very dear. It took me exactly three seconds to realize what it was she was playing.
“Now 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?”
Months Earlier, when I saw Rufus Wainwright play alone, he did the same thing. Almost an hour into his performance, he played “Memphis Skyline,” his personal tribute to Jeff Buckley, and afterwards he followed quietly into his own rendition of this song. On this night he played it slow and soft, attempting to carry a certain haunt that he felt he could pull off.
“It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah”
Hallelujah is one of those songs that stop time. It’s lyrics are tempting, thought-provoking riddles that defy shallow definition. Its simple chord structure invites re-organization and illumination. It’s elastic. The song can take four minutes or nine, and all the same things can be said. It can be ecstatic or mournful. Hallelujah is like a plain pad of paper, or tofu, or a great desert of plain sand; it is only what we make of it; a blank canvas waiting to be etched.
“Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you”
Leonard Cohen, the guy who wrote this song, is a venerable artist in his own right. But I don’t want to focus on him right now. The fact that he wrote this song is important and worth plenty of praise, but all he did was write and record it first. It certainly wasn’t a hit of his or anything. I’m sure he had absolutely no intention of it becoming as mammoth as it has. But of course, he was “The Baffled King Composing” It was written in 1994, but the majority of folks really wouldn’t be forced to hear it until they went to see Shrek. That movie is really important, actually, because it was the first of around a dozen or so movies and TV shows to have used Hallelujah as background melancholy in the past three years. Sure, that’s not the date that real music lovers first heard the song. That date probably falls in between the release of Jeff Buckley’s Grace and now. By far the most famous cover, it’s also the song that tends to make people go from being ‘who’s Jeff Buckley?’ to ‘I love the hell out of Jeff Buckley.’
“She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah”
Jeff of course was not the first guy to cover Hallelujah, but I doubt that he minded that he was beaten to the punch by Bob Dylan. For a long time the Dylan version was regarded with a little bit of urban mythos, but like almost every song in that category, became readily available on p2p carriers. It’s not my favorite version by a long shot–I actually preferred Sarah Slean’s, actually–but Dylan certainly doesn’t desecrate the song like Bono did. At least Bob had the decency to sound like himself, which some might argue give a broken sounding credence to the song in a line up of really pretty versions. And I can’t argue with that. I can, however, argue anyone who claims that Bono’s rendition is anything but an absolute atrocity to the ears. The one cool thing Bono did was sing the original version of the song–not the one Buckley–and subsequently most people–did. The song sounds as if Bono wanted to go through a period of spoken word slam poetry. In contrast, he over-sings the crap out of the chorus. He also thought it might be a good idea to use bad synth sound effects instead of pianos or guitars. U2 is such a mediocre band right now, but most people think that their early stuff was all gold. They haven’t heard this song.
“Baby I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”
I always knew a lot of people had covered this song, but researching this fact staggered me. Here’s the list of artists I found had versions of Hallelujah: Francesco Baccini, Blue Engine String Quartet, Blue Jupiter, Chris Botti, Clare Bowditch, John Cale, The Dresden Dolls, KD Lang, Kendra, Kelsey, Kathryn Williams, Allison Crowe, Sheryl Crow, Rufus Wainwright, Elisa, Jeff Buckley, and U2. I know there’s more out there, but that’s all I could find on short notice. I’ve listened to most of them and they’re all pretty distinct. John Cale’s is very professional sounding. Sheryl Crow’s is a little disingenuous, but pretty. Rufus’ recorded version–which you can find on the Shrek soundtrack–is rather poppy, actually, and is the shortest version I found. The Dresden Dolls’ version was rather cool because they gave it the same kind of smoky, ghost-like quality that Buckley did, but also added a touch of twitchy insanity that totally works. That version, as well as a few others, can be found here.
“Well there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah”
Hallelujah means something different for everyone who listens to it. In 1985, while at a concert in Warsaw, Cohen explained his idea for the song; “I know that there is an eye that watches all of us. There is a judgment that weighs everything we do. And before this great force, which is greater than any government, I stand in awe and I kneel in respect. And it is to this great judgment that I dedicate this next song.” To some people, this directs to a God. To others, it represents love. To others still, this song reflects their respect for the great entertainers that they admire. And to others still, the song represents death. I agree with all of them. Buckley’s version especially feels mortal and wounded, but at the same time directed toward a lover, or perhaps an eternal lover, or perhaps just himself, in his own secret poetry.
“Well, maybe there’s a god above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you”
I could talk about the exploitation of this song for commercial use, but I can’t really justify it. It’s not on any commercials. It’s not being used to sell a product. All people in the entertainment industry have done with Hallelujah is play it at crucial moments of truth and heartbreak in movies and TV. And for that it has to be genuine first, so I’ve got no problem with it. And I can’t say I’ve ever referred to Hallelujah as ‘that song from…’ People tend to know what it is. It’s probably because they like it enough to download a copy. And that’s okay, because that means they’ve spent five minutes in that awesome trance that only a great pop song can offer.
“It’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”
