Bob Dylan’s live cover is one of the more interesting versions to me, since it’s the only one I know of that uses the four-verse version Cohen recorded rather than the five-verse version that the John Cale cover and those inspired by it use, and the guitar work from Dylan is some of his best.
Jeff Buckley’s version is my favorite of the Cale-alikes - the guitar is haunting and you can feel the pain in the singer’s soul, and hearing it always makes me feel sad about how Buckley didn’t get to live to see his version become popular.
Cohen is said to have written as many as 150 verses for the song, and faxed Cale 15 pages of lyrics when he was developing his cover. I’d really like to hear some versions that incorporate some of the verses that aren’t used in the two most common arrangements.
I love Leonard Cohen, I have listened to his records endlessly for 40 years and have seen him live three times and it was great, but Hallelujah is the one song I cannot suffer. Pity. And on the last concert the woman next to me sang awfully along, it was painful, she messed the rhythm all up, missed the cue to start and finish and so out of tune it would have curdled milk in the udder had a cow been present. Almost ruined the whole experience.
I hadn’t heard the k.d. lang version before this thread, but, damn, it’s good. So much contemplation, melancholy and experience in that voice. Buckley’s is probably my favorite, but I like the original, too. Anything that doesn’t sound too “pretty” works for me.
There was a well-publicized memorial service in a nearby town for a teacher-coach who had been struck and killed by an impaired driver while walking in Memphis. One of the songs sung at the service was ‘Halleujah’. I had never heard this sung at a funeral, but when I searched it, it appears that it is something performed at celebration of life services. Has anybody else heard it at a funeral?
The Jeff Buckley version was my introduction to the song, I feel like it’s a parallel tale of moving from enthusiasm to cynicism both in a relationship with God on the one hand, and human love on the other.
Cohen mixes elements of two biblical stories (David and Bathsheeba, Sampson and Delilah) in a single verse. He draws on lots of religious imagery, but it isn’t coherent or consistent. It doesn’t qualify as a religious song in that sense.
