"Hallelujah" is a song written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, originally released on his album Various Positions (1984). Achieving little initial success, the song found greater popular acclaim through a new version recorded by John Cale in 1991. Cale's version inspired a 1994 recording by Jeff Buckley which in 2004 was ranked number 259 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The song achieved widespread popularity after Cale's version of it was featured in the 2001 film Shrek. Many other arrangements have been performed in recordings and in concert, with more than 300 versions known as of 2008. The song has been used in film and television soundtracks and televised talent contests. "Hallelujah" experienced renewed interest following Cohen's death in November 2016 and re-appeared on international singles charts, including entering the American Billboard Hot 100 for the first time.

History

Cohen is reputed to have written between 80 and 180 draft verses for "Hallelujah"—a number affected by having many versions of the same line, although only 7 of these have been officially released. He claimed 150 draft verses, substantiated by his notebooks containing many 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.

Contrasting with the song's future popularity, "Hallelujah" initially was on an album that was rejected by Columbia Records, was largely ignored after an independent label released it, was not widely covered until John Cale's 1991 version, and did not reach the Billboard charts until Cohen's death in 2016. Reflecting on the song's initial rejection, Cohen related that Columbia told him that "we know you are great, but don't know if you are any good".

Following his original 1984 studio-album version, Cohen performed the original song on his world tour in 1985, but live performances during his 1988 and 1993 tours almost invariably contained a quite different set of lyrics. Numerous singers mix lyrics from both versions, and occasionally make direct lyric changes; for example, in place of Cohen's "holy dove", Canadian-American singer Rufus Wainwright substituted "holy dark", while Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe sang "holy ghost".

Musical composition and lyrical interpretation

"Hallelujah", in its original version, is in time, which evokes both early rock and roll and gospel music. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression of C, F, G, A minor, F matches those referenced in the song's famous first verse.

When at age 50 Cohen first recorded the song, he described it as "rather joyous", and said that it came from "a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with emotion." He later said "there is a religious hallelujah, but there are many other ones. When one looks at the world, there's only one thing to say, and it's hallelujah". Journalist Larry Sloman, who knew Cohen well and interviewed him often, described the song as one part biblical, one part the woman that Cohen slept with last night, citing an unidentified critic saying that Cohen was most interested in "holiness and horniness".

His original version, recorded on his 1984 album Various Positions, contains allusions to several biblical verses, including the stories of Samson and Delilah from the Book of Judges ("she cut your hair") as well as King David and Bathsheba ("you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you").

Cohen's lyrical poetry and his view that "many different hallelujahs exist" is reflected in wide-ranging covers with very different intents or tones, allowing the song to be "melancholic, fragile, uplifting [or] joyous" depending on the performer: The Welsh singer-songwriter John Cale, the first person to record a cover version of the song (in 1991), promoted a message of "soberness and sincerity" in contrast to Cohen's dispassionate tone; the cover by Jeff Buckley, an American singer-songwriter, is more sorrowful and was described by Buckley as "a hallelujah to the orgasm"; Crowe interpreted the song as a "very sexual" composition that discussed relationships; Wainwright offered a "purifying and almost liturgical" interpretation; and Guy Garvey of the British band Elbow made the hallelujah a "stately creature" and incorporated his religious interpretation of the song into his band's recordings. Noting its inclusion in the 2001 animated movie Shrek and performance in numerous singing competition reality shows, New York Times movie reviewer A. O. Scott wrote that "Hallelujah is one of those rare songs that survives its banalization with at least some of its sublimity intact". Bob Dylan included the song in some of his set lists in the late 1980s.

Canadian singer k.d. lang said in an interview shortly after Cohen's death that she considered the song to be about "the struggle between having human desire and searching for spiritual wisdom. It's being caught between those two places." Former Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page, who sang the song at Canadian politician Jack Layton's funeral, described the song as being "about disappointing [other] people".

The song was the subject of a 2012 book, The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of 'Hallelujah'; author Alan Light said that Cohen's "approach to language and craft feel unlike the work of anybody else. They sound rooted in poetry and literature because he studied as a poet and a novelist first." The book served as the basis for the 2022 documentary film Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song; the film's co-creator said that Cohen "addressed the deepest of our human concerns about longing for connection and longing for some sort of hope, transcendence and acknowledgment of the difficulties of life."

Financial Times arts and culture columnist Enuma Okoro wrote that "the lyrics and the tone of the song seem to sway between hymn and dirge, two musical forms that could serve as responses to almost everything that happens in our lives: songs that celebrate and acknowledge the blessings and provisions of our lives, and songs that bemoan our losses, our heartbreaks, and our deaths". Okoro noted that the word hallelujah is composed of two Hebrew words that mean "praise God", adding that Cohen said people have been "singing it for thousands of years to affirm our little journey". "The word itself, Hallelujah, composed of the two Hebrew words, hallel (praise) and yah (an abbreviated form of Yahweh, God), literally means to praise God."

Charts

Chart (1985–2016)Peakposition Australia (ARIA) 59 France (SNEP) 1 Italy (FIMI) 66 New Zealand Heatseekers (RMNZ) 1 US Billboard Hot 100 59

Certifications

Cover versions

Since 1991, "Hallelujah" has been performed by more than 300 singers in many languages. Statistics from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Canadian Recording Industry Association, the Australian Recording Industry Association, and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, show that, by late 2008, more than five million copies of the song sold in CD format. It has been the subject of a BBC Radio documentary, a book, and been in the soundtracks of numerous films and television programs.Appleyard, Bryan (9 January 2005)."Hallelujah! — One Haunting Ballad Has Been the Soundtrack to Many Lives Recently. But Why? Bryan Appleyard on Leonard Cohen's Uber-Song". The Times. Retrieved 13 February 2010. Different interpretations of the song may include different verses, out of the more than 80 verses Cohen originally wrote.

In an April 2009 CBC Radio interview, Cohen said he found the number of covers of his song "ironic and amusing", given that his record label refused to release it when he first wrote it; however, he then claimed the song could benefit from a break in exposure:

I was just reading a review of a movie called Watchmen that uses it and the reviewer said – "Can we please have a moratorium on 'Hallelujah' in movies and television shows?" And I kind of feel the same way ... I think it's a good song, but I think too many people sing it.CanWest News Service (10 April 2009). . Retrieved 12 July 2009.

Conversely, in early 2012, while promoting his then-current album, Old Ideas, Cohen stated he was not tired of the song being covered:

There's been a couple of times when other people have said can we have a moratorium please on "Hallelujah"? Must we have it at the end of every single drama and every single Idol? And once or twice I've felt maybe I should lend my voice to silencing it but on second thought no, I'm very happy that it's being sung.

John Cale John Cale's cover first appeared on I'm Your Fan (1991), a Leonard Cohen tribute album, and later on his live album Fragments of a Rainy Season (1992). Cale's version has vocals, piano, and different lyrics that Cohen had only performed live such as "I used to live alone before I knew ya" and "All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya". Cale had watched Cohen perform the song and asked Cohen to send him the lyrics. Cohen then faxed Cale 15 pages of lyrics. Cale claims that he "went through and just picked out the cheeky verses."

Cale's version forms the basis of most subsequent performances, including Cohen's performances during his 2008–09 world tour. Cale's version is used in the film Shrek (2001), but Rufus Wainwright's version appears on the soundtrack album. Cale's also appears on the first soundtrack album for the TV series Scrubs and as the ending song of the Cold Case episode "Death Penalty, Final Appeal".

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. It was released as a single in 2007, ten years after Buckley's death. In 2012, a limited edition vinyl single of Buckley and Cohen's versions released for Record Store Day.

Critical reception In 2004, Buckley's version was ranked number 259 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The same year Time called Buckley's version "exquisitely sung," observing "Cohen murmured the original like a dirge, but ... Buckley treated the ... song like a tiny capsule of humanity, using his voice to careen between glory and sadness, beauty and pain ... It's one of the great songs."

In September 2007, a poll of fifty songwriters conducted by the magazine Q listed "Hallelujah" among the all-time "Top 10 Greatest Tracks" with John Legend calling Buckley's version "as near perfect as you can get. The lyrics to 'Hallelujah' are just incredible and the melody's gorgeous and then there's Jeff's interpretation of it. It's one of the most beautiful pieces of recorded music I've ever heard." In July 2009, the Buckley track was ranked number three on the 2009 Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time, a listener poll held every decade by the Australian radio station Triple J. In 2017, The International Observer named Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" the greatest song of all time. On 2 April 2013, it was announced that Buckley's version would be inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.

Commercial performance Buckley's version was not an instant hit, nor did Buckley live to see the full measure of the reception his recording would ultimately have; he died in 1997. The album on which it appeared did not go gold in the US until 2002, nine years after its release.