How Did Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah Become So Popular, It’s hard to think of any song that has taken a stranger journey through popular culture than Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
Recorded in 1984, it was on the only Cohen album rejected by his record company. Virtually no one noticed when the song did come out on an independent label. Since then, through dozens of cover versions, high-profile performances and appearances on TV or movie soundtracks, Hallelujah has become a modern standard.
Recorded in 1984, it was on the only Cohen album rejected by his record company. Virtually no one noticed when the song did come out on an independent label. Since then, through dozens of cover versions, high-profile performances and appearances on TV or movie soundtracks, Hallelujah has become a modern standard.
Author Alan Light reflected upon that while at Yom Kippur services in Manhattan two years ago, as he saw congregants in tears when the choir sang Hallelujah. His curiosity led him to write The Holy or the Broken, about the song’s trajectory, about Cohen and about its most celebrated singer, the late Jeff Buckley. The book is out Tuesday.
“At a time when everything has fragmented so dramatically, it’s sort of heartening to see that this song can connect as universally as it did,” Light said.
Cohen laboured over Hallelujah, filling a notebook with some 80 verses before recording. The song has Biblical references, but Cohen’s stated goal was to give a non-religious context to hallelujah, an expression of praise. Some of those hallelujah moments are clearly sexual, given a lyric like “she tied you to a kitchen chair ... and from your lips she drew the hallelujah.” The author’s droll humour is present throughout in lines like “you don’t really care for music, do you?”
Musically (and Cohen’s lyrics even describe the melody), the verses build slowly to a release in the chorus, which is simply the title word repeated four times.
Read More:http://www.therecord.com/whatson/artsentertainment/article/850085--strange-journey-of-leonard-cohen-s-hallelujah-focus-of-new-book
“At a time when everything has fragmented so dramatically, it’s sort of heartening to see that this song can connect as universally as it did,” Light said.
Cohen laboured over Hallelujah, filling a notebook with some 80 verses before recording. The song has Biblical references, but Cohen’s stated goal was to give a non-religious context to hallelujah, an expression of praise. Some of those hallelujah moments are clearly sexual, given a lyric like “she tied you to a kitchen chair ... and from your lips she drew the hallelujah.” The author’s droll humour is present throughout in lines like “you don’t really care for music, do you?”
Musically (and Cohen’s lyrics even describe the melody), the verses build slowly to a release in the chorus, which is simply the title word repeated four times.
Read More:http://www.therecord.com/whatson/artsentertainment/article/850085--strange-journey-of-leonard-cohen-s-hallelujah-focus-of-new-book
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