Which one is your favorite? - XII -

Here is a very classic song for you, originally written and performed by Leonard Cohen. Maybe being the most famous song of Cohen in the later years, initially it almost didn’t get released; and when it was, it passed almost unnoticed.

And here is that song;

"Hallelujah"

"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 recording by John Cale, which inspired a recording by Jeff Buckley. It is considered as the "baseline" of secular hymns.

The song, in its original version, is in 12/8 time, which evokes both early rock and roll and gospel music. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression matches lyrics from the song: "goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift": C, F, G, A minor, F.

Cohen wrote around 80 draft verses for "Hallelujah", with one writing session at the Royalton Hotel in New York where he was reduced to sitting on the floor in his underwear, banging his head on the floor. His original version, as recorded on his album Various Positions, contains several biblical references, most notably evoking 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"). 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. Cohen's performances of the song drew the attention of many other artists and the song started to become viral. As of today it is one of the most covered songs of all time.

Leonard Cohen once explained: "Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means 'Glory to the Lord.' The song explains that many kinds of Hallelujahs do exist. I say: All the perfect and broken Hallelujahs have an equal value. It's a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion."

As I mentioned there are dozens of noteworthy covers of the song and I tried to pick the ones that have both artistic and historical value...

Just for this song I had to choose 4 versions and here they are;

• John Cale - "Hallelujah"

• Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah"

• K.D. Lang - "Hallelujah"

• Rufus Wainwright - "Hallelujah"

And another performance from Mennel that I liked very much, but keep in mind that it is out of the competition...

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...