I love this song . . . it’s beautiful. Unfortunately, the official soundtrack has a different artist singing the song, one whose voice isn’t quite as nice.
I’ve looked everywhere, and can’t find it. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
The version I downloaded was by Jeff Buckley. And it’s a fantastic song. I dont know if that’s the soundtrack version tho.
It’s on his recording “Fragments of a Rainy Season” Half.com has several available
Rufus Wainwright sang the version from Shrek. But it’s a beautiful song by almost anyone. I think Leonard Cohen has a nice version too.
It’s not. John Cale sings the movie version.
Okay, guys, I found someplace which has an (http://www.radiationconsulting.com/igbl/index.cfm?FuseAction=Forum_Replies&Post_PK=5520) version of the song. Problem is, it’s jerky. It will play, then have a long pause, resume, and then pause again.
Is there any way to save this song to my files in RealOne Player? (Is it legal to do so, first of all?) Is there any way to make the song play more smoothly?
Leonard Cohen wrote the song, and did two versions of it.
(The version in Shrek uses the lyrics from the second version. I have the first on CD, and that tripped me up a bit.)
I just checked Amazon.com, and it says Rufus Wainwright does the song on the soundtrack. Could it possibly be a mistake, or could Cale do the actual song in the movie but not the soundtrack? Or am I misunderstanding the question?
Yeah, Cale did the movie version, but Wainwright’s on the album. What I heard in my search is that Wainright had an upcomming album which was due to be released by the same company which did the movie. The accusations are that Wainwright’s version was used to plug his album, but I have no way of verifying that.
When I saw Shrek, I was fascinated by the song; I had never heard it before. I was surprised to discover it’s been covered by tons of big artists, including Bob Dylan and U2 (or maybe it was just Bono). As mentioned before, it’s by Leonard Cohen.
John Cale’s version of “Hallelujah” appears on the Leonard Cohen tribute CD I’m Your Fan. I can’t verify that this is the same performance as the Shrek version or if he re-recorded it for the soundtrack–but I believe it is the same. The song also appears on Cale’s Fragments of a Rainy Season, but that’s a live version.
Ah, now it all makes sense. When I saw the movie I thought “Hey, that’s John Cale!” Then I was totally mystified to see Rufus Wainright in the album credits.
The version in the movie is the one from Fragments of a Rainy Season but they hacked it up. For some reason the line “Now maybe there’s a god above” was unacceptable, so that verse is one line short in the movie.
IMHO, the version on the “soundtrack” CD is nowhere near as good.
Search the SDMB archives, there’s a discussion about which version of Hallelujah is best. To make a long story short: Consensus is that Jeff Buckley’s is best with Cale’s a close second and the U2 version is horrible.