A song, by a Jewish convert to Buddhism, with the title ‘Praise God’ is about to be Christmas No 1 thanks to the X Factor. Martin Wroe explores the peculiar power of the Leonard Cohen classic.
'Hallelujah', written in the early 1980s by the Canadian Jewish singer-songwriter – and later Buddhist ascetic – Leonard Cohen, has an unlikely back story – stretching all the way from a shepherd-king in Palestine several hundred years before Jesus Christ to the Hollywood blockbuster 'Shrek'.
Apart from Cohen aficionados, no one really noticed the song for 10 years until it was covered by John Cale, formerly of the 60s rock legends the Velvet Underground.
But within a year or two it began its transition to global recognition when it was covered by singer-songwriter, Jeff Buckley, himself the son of 1960s singer-songwriter, Tim Buckley, both of whom died, tragically, while they were young men.
By the turn of the millennium, this song of praise to God – hallelu Yah (‘praise to God’) was being covered by any number of famous musicians from Bob Dylan to kd lang, and featuring on TV shows from The OC to The West Wing.
A piano-based version by Canadian Rufus Wainwright appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Shrek, in which the ogre – Shrek – is forced to rescue the Princess from a lovestruck dragon.
It is the ultimate post-modern moment – a song, located in the Hebrew Bible, written by a Jewish convert to Buddhism being sung by a heartbroken cartoon ogre... of no obvious religious persuasion.
The broken hallelujah
And on one level the song is about the healing powers of music. It opens by alluding to the harp-playing of the shepherd boy David which the Bible says helped to soothe the mind of King Saul (1 Samuel 16.23).
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord…
It then moves to David’s affair, as king, with Bathsheba, wife of one of his soldiers – and morphs into Samson, overcome by desire for Delilah.
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.
Religion gives way to sex: from the secret chord David played which pleased the Lord to the secret chord between two people in love. And the song becomes a meditation on a fractured relationship and the meaning of love. With elegiac ‘hallelujahs’ bridging the story, it becomes a memorial to the way things used to be between two people – but the bonds of this love are now broken. Once this was a relationship so intense, so mystical, that it evoked the divine itself…
(But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too)
And every breath we drew (was) Hallelujah.
As the verses close, the writer is unsure about God but sure about love:
…it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
But what is a song of praise to God – hallelujah – praise Yah – doing as the theme for hit TV shows, on best-selling albums and now Christmas Number Ones?