If you have not already seen this take a few minutes and listen. Kelley Mooney’s lyrical adaptation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is beautiful and poignant, a wonderful meditation on what we are celebrating this Eastertide.
While I agree that the popular version of the song is not appropriate for a liturgical celebration, to be fair to Mr. Cohen, there is a little more to it than that.
Leonard Cohen struggled with the song for years, writing some 80 verses. The version of the song most people know is based on the cover by John Cale who admits to going through fifteen pages of lyrics and just picking out the “cheeky” ones.
Leonard Cohen himself sings a version with different lyrics. My favorite:
“I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”
There is a book by Alan Light dedicated to this song. An excerpt can be found here. The first part of the excerpt includes a terrific exegesis from several ministers on the spiritual aspects of Cohen’s lyrics. There is much treasure to be found there for those willing to dig for it.
“He ends the first verse with ‘the baffled king composing Hallelujah!’ – a comment on the unknowable nature of artistic creation, or of romantic love, or both. In the song’s earliest moments, he has placed us in a time of ancient legend, and peeled back the spiritual power of music and art to reveal the concrete components, reducing even literal musical royalty to the role of simple craftsman.” – Alan Light
It makes me wonder about the other 70-odd lyrics.