History of Hallelujah

[da]

An interesting History of Hallelujah from Leonard Cohen to the 100+ covers of the song. The author suggests it's been dumbed down- the first few covers changed words and tone; and subsequent covers were covers of one or another of the previous covers and lack some of the emotional complexity of the original.

And so when Jeff Buckley decided to cover "Hallelujah," he didn't really cover Cohen, he covered Cale; the form and lyrics of their versions match almost exactly, while none of the three previous versions (Cohen studio, Cohen live, Cale) match at all. [Buckley's] effect was to flatten the song emotionally, to take out all the different Hallelujahs Cohen depicted and reduce them to one: the cold and broken, which appears here twice.

And that's the version that gets recycled for TV and movie, it becomes a placeholder for "people are being sad now."

Comments

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

There was an article from the (UK) Independent in December that gave an outline of the history of "Hallelujah".

It pointed out that Cohen wrote "at least 80 verses" - so people chopping and changing the words seems acceptable!

What gets me is when the sexual nature of the song is removed - a couple of recent covers have done that. But then I got to know the song through Jeff Buckley, and his version is very much a love song.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Yes--that bothers me, too. The original is very, very much about physicality.

[sulle-stelle.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting! I don't entirely agree with the comment about the "emotional complexity" of the original, when he also calls it somewhat sly and silly (I'm paraphrasing). But I do agree that it wasn't originally a lament. But that's not quite the same as "complex."

Anyway, it makes such a GREAT lament. :-)

And, of course, we all know that the definitive version of the song is k.d.'s.