The History of Hallelujah
Music is all around us, with the birth of technology music is everywhere–mountain tops, 100 leagues under the sea, and even in space. The turnover of music, and how we discard tracks and artists in a new “one-hit wonder” commerce driven industry, accelerates each day. Some songs however live forever, and often provide a soundtrack to the lives of listeners everywhere. More significantly they are the soundtrack to an authors life, whether that life be difficult or joyous.
In 1994 Leonard Cohen wrote “Hallelujah” for his upcoming album “Various Positions”. For Cohen, writing the song was a long painful process in which reportedly wrote, and subsequently discarded, more than 80 verses for the song. Although a lot of songs evolve, having lyrics changed, and verses added or removed… rarely does one go through this level of scorn from it’s author. In fact Cohen recalled in a later interview “banging my head on the hotel floor shouting ‘this song will never be finished’”. Finished in time it was, thankfully.
The original version pressed was a 4 minute 39 second version long forgotten by those who know the song better as one of its many covered versions. This recording was surpassed by a later released live version extended to 6 minutes 54 seconds, with the lyrics people find familiar today.
“I heard there was a secret chord, that David played and it pleased the Lord“
Cohens writing at the time was specialised, he worked in a genre not truly appreciated by the public at large. The song was likely to be very special to the hearts of Cohen fans, and appluaded loudly by songwriters as a beautiful piece of writing. Just over 10 years later the song was to be covered by a young Jeff Buckley.
Buckley was to release Hallelujah as a cover version on his album “Grace”, an album which acheived worldwide success, and elevated Buckley to cult stardom. Less than 3 years later Buckley died whilst swimming in the Wolf River Harbor, singing Led Zepplin. Buckley’s father Tim had been a magical songwriter, and all at once the world played Hallelujah. This would be the version the world would connect with, sing, and make love to.
Buckley’s life was an incredible one itself and can be viewed in a stunning documentary “Everybody Here Wants You”. Available here on YouTube.
Lest we not forget Cohen’s pain in writing Hallelujah, and the magical talent of Buckley which with great feeling propelled the song into the permanent record collections of millions. Make sure Hallelujah, and Grace, are in your record collection forever. And next time you hear Hallelujah, consider where it really came from.
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