DrHGuy wrote:
2. Comment on post about a cover of "Ring of Fire"
"When Jeff played at the funeral of his father, Leonard Cohen was so moved that he permitted Jeff to cover his halleluja."
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/03/ad ... 0255191515
[Note: An often mentioned portion of the Jeff Buckley bio, of course, has to do with his feelings about not being invited to his father's funeral so this seems at least somewhat in error]
Buckley's father? His stepfather? Didn't Tim Buckley die when Jeff Buckley was 8 or 9, before he even owned a guitar, not to mention the fact that he wasn't there? A little confused about this part.
DrHGuy wrote:3. "Hallelujah - a song with a life of its own" - The Independent
"Buckley omits two of Cohen's redemptive verses; he called his version an ode to 'the hallelujah of an orgasm', even saying: 'I hope Leonard doesn't hear it.' He needn't have worried. Cohen has allegedly acknowledged it to be his favourite version."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 52178.html
[Note: This claim, with or without the "allegedly," also appears in several posts, Myspace pages, etc]
I don't really see the missing verses as being especially redemptive or anything. I like them, but they don't seem any less cynical than most of Cohen's songs. More tellingly, as far as I can tell, Rufus Wainwright's and Jeff Buckley's versions are pretty much identical (which verses are used as well as the exact wording of some phrases) to John Cale's, so it seems kind of unlikely to me that the omission of those verses was really that intentional on JB's part. Did Cohen give exact lyrics to John Cale, or did LC ever record the "Baby I've been here before...." version before "Cohen Live" (or were the full lyrics published somewhere)? I notice that Cohen seems to use "a complaint that you hear at night" vs. "a cry that you hear at night", and there are a couple other similar differences between most recorded / live LC versions I've heard and the version song by many others. Has LC (or anyone of note, for that matter) performed
all the verses? [edit - sure this has been discussed elsewhere on this forum, but Wikpedia, as usual, has an answer -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah ... #John_Cale]
I actually had thought that at least one of the versions we're talking about had *all* the verses, but none of them do. I was interested to notice the order he's been performing it on this most recent tour. I was at one of the recent LA shows, but didn't notice the order specifically.
I did a little checking yesterday, and here's the list I came up with (PM me if there are any errors):
Code: Select all
| LC1 | LC2 | JC | JB | RW | LC3**
----------------------------------------------------------
Heard there was | 1 | | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
----------------------------------------------------------
Faith was strong | 2 | | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
----------------------------------------------------------
Took the name in | 3 | | | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------
I did my best* | 4 | 4 | | | | 6 |
----------------------------------------------------------
Baby I've been here | | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
----------------------------------------------------------
There was a time | | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
----------------------------------------------------------
Maybe there's a God | | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
----------------------------------------------------------
* This one appears in two different locations, so I listed it twice
instead of just once.
** On the last one, the sequence is different, so I used numbers to
indicate order.
(LC1 = "Various Positions" version)
(LC2 = "Cohen Live" version)
(LC3 = live version 2008-9 (using LA and London as examples)
On the topic of variations of the lyrics, does anyone know why Rufus Wainwright uses "holy dark" vs. "holy dove" (it always sounds like "holy duck" to me; from a quick search, seems I'm not the only one)? Religious reasons? Did he just hear it wrong?