Hallelujah was written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen and originally released in 1984 on his album Various Positions. Achieving little initial success, the song found greater popular acclaim through a new version recorded by John Cale in 1991, which inspired a recording of Cale’s version by Jeff Buckley in 1994.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(Leonard_Cohen_song)
Cohen’s meaning of ‘Hallelujah‘
This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’
— Leonard Cohen
LEONARD COHEN
Album:
Hallelujah is on Various Positions which entered Australian albums chart* on 17 June 1985 and peaked at #52.
Songwriter:
Leonard Cohen
Producer:
John Lissauer
Record label of Australian release:
CBS
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
JOHN CALE
John Cale’s cover first appeared on I’m Your Fan, a Leonard Cohen tribute album in 1991.
JEFF BUCKLEY
Jeff Buckley, inspired by Cale’s earlier cover, recorded one of the most acclaimed versions of Hallelujah for his only complete album, Grace, in 1994.
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT
Canadian-American musician and singer Rufus Wainwright had briefly met Jeff Buckley and recorded a tribute to him after his 1997 death. That song, Memphis Skyline, referenced Buckley’s version of Hallelujah, which Wainwright would later record, though using piano and a similar arrangement to Cale’s.
K.D. LANG
In 2004, k.d. lang recorded a version of Hallelujah on her album Hymns of the 49th Parallel. She has since sung it at several major events, such as at the Canadian Juno Awards of 2005, where it “brought the audience to its feet for a two-minute ovation.” Lang also sang it at the 2006 Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame when Cohen was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Cohen’s partner, singer Anjani Thomas, said: “After hearing k.d. lang perform that song at the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2006 we looked at each other and said, ‘well, I think we can lay that song to rest now! It’s really been done to its ultimate blissful state of perfection’.”
Wikipedia:
Cohen is reputed to have written around 80 to as many as 180 draft verses for Hallelujah. Cohen is said to have claimed 150 draft verses, a claim substantiated by his notebooks containing manifold revisions and additions, and by contemporary interviews. In a writing session in New York’s 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.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(Leonard_Cohen_song)
Lyrics:
Now I′ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Click for full lyrics
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