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Many arrangements have been performed in recordings and in concert, with more than 300 versions known as of 2008. The song has been used in film and television soundtracks and televised talent contests. Hallelujah experienced renewed interest following Cohen's death in November 2016 and re-appeared on international singles charts, including entering the American Billboard Hot 100 for the first time.
Hallelujah, in its original version, is in 12
8 time, which evokes both early rock and roll and gospel music. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression of C, F, G, A minor, F matches those referenced in the song's famous first verse.
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Hallelujah is a song written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, recorded in June of 1984 and released on that year on his album, Various Positions.
The song found popular acclaim through a version recorded by John Cale in 1991. Cale's version inspired a 1994 recording by Jeff Buckley which in 2004 was ranked number 259 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Many arrangements have been performed in recordings and in concert, with more than 300 versions known as of 2008. The song has been used in film and television soundtracks and televised talent contests. Hallelujah experienced renewed interest following Cohen's death in November 2016 and re-appeared on international singles charts, including entering the American Billboard Hot 100 for the first time.
Cohen is reputed to have written between 80 and 180 draft verses for Hallelujah—a number affected by having many versions of the same line. He claimed 150 draft verses, substantiated by his notebooks containing
many revisions and additions, and by contemporary interviews. In a writing session in the New York Royalton Hotel,
Cohen is famously said to have been reduced to sitting on the floor in
his underwear, filling notebooks, banging his head on the floor. Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, creators of the 2022 documentary film Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, said that Cohen took about five years to write the song, and reconfigured it numerous times for performances.
Unlike songs that became anthems, Hallelujah initially was on an album that was rejected by Columbia Records, was largely ignored after an independent label released it, not widely covered until the 1991 Cale version and did not reach the Billboard charts until Cohen's death in 2016. Reflecting on the song's initial rejection, Cohen related that Columbia
told him "we know you are great, but don't know if you are any
good". (WTF does THAT mean?)
When at age 50 Cohen first recorded the song, he described it as "rather
joyous", and said that it came from "a desire to affirm my faith in
life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with
emotion." He later said "there is a religious hallelujah, but there are many other ones. When one looks at the world, there's only one thing to say, and it's hallelujah".
Cohen's lyrical poetry and his view that "many different hallelujahs
exist" is reflected in wide-ranging covers with very different intents
or tones, allowing the song to be "melancholic, fragile, uplifting [or]
joyous" depending on the performer. Singers mix lyrics from both versions, and occasionally make
direct lyric changes; for example, in place of Cohen's "holy dove",
Canadian-American singer Rufus Wainwright substituted "holy dark", while Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe sang "holy ghost".
Cale promoted a message of "soberness and sincerity" in contrast to Cohen's dispassionate tone; the cover by Jeff Buckley, an American singer-songwriter, is more sorrowful and was described by Buckley as "a hallelujah to the orgasm"; Crowe interpreted the song as a "very sexual" composition that discussed relationships; Wainwright offered a "purifying and almost liturgical" interpretation; and Guy Garvey of the British band Elbow made the hallelujah a "stately creature" and incorporated his religious interpretation of the song into his band's recordings.
Canadian singer k.d. lang
said in an interview shortly after Cohen's death that she considered
the song to be about "the struggle between having human desire and
searching for spiritual wisdom. It's being caught between those two
places." Former Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page, who sang the song at the Canadian politician Jack Layton funeral, described the song as being "about disappointing [other] people"
Journalist Larry Sloman, who knew Cohen well and interviewed him often, described the song as one part biblical and one part the woman that Cohen slept with last night, citing an unidentified critic saying that Cohen was most interested in "holiness and horniness".
Financial Times arts and culture columnist Enuma Okoro wrote that "the lyrics and the tone of the song seem to sway between hymn and dirge,
two musical forms that could serve as responses to almost everything
that happens in our lives: songs that celebrate and acknowledge the
blessings and provisions of our lives, and songs that bemoan our losses,
our heartbreaks, and our deaths". Okoro noted that the word hallelujah is composed of two Hebrew
words that mean "praise God", adding that Cohen said people have been
"singing it for thousands of years to affirm our little journey."
His original version, recorded on his 1984 album Various Positions, contains allusions to several biblical verses, including the stories of Samson and Delilah from the Book of Judges ("she cut your hair") as well as King David and Bathsheba ("you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you")
My two favorite covers are from the a capella group Pentatonix; the sounds they produce with only their voices is astounding! The second cover is from the duo, 2Cellos; most covers are vocal of one kind or another, theirs is an instrumental and the video editing is stunning and magical!
A couple of versions also worth mentioning are the biggest and the smallest. The biggest was a performance one warm evening on Jun 30, 2016, when 1,500 singers came to Luminato
Festival at the Hearn Generating Station in Toronto. Daveed + Nobu (AKA
DaBu) taught them back up parts to Hallelujah, then Rufus Wainwright joined them on stage to sing lead. It was an EPIC NIGHT to remember.
The smallest was when Kate McKinnon performed solo with piano during the Saturday Night Live broadcast on November 12, 2016, days after Hillary Clinton lost the election and two days after Cohen died. McKinnon is a fantastic actress but not a great singer but the emotion packed into her performance was electrifying! I don't know if it was Clinton's loss or Cohen's death but I was in tears by the finish of the song! The hairs on my arms still stand up when I listen to it.
Hallelujah, in its original version, is in 12
8 time, which evokes both early rock and roll and gospel music. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression of C, F, G, A minor, F matches those referenced in the song's famous first verse.
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