EMP on Halellujah

[dick]

Hate to admit that I was not familiar with the "Experience Music Project" in Seattle until I read this blog and googled EMP ..

Can't speak to accuracy, but I enjoyed this and would like to read the actual presentation -- right now the blog is what we've got...

http://alimarcus.wordpress.com/2007/04/ ... allelujah/

April 20, 2007
EMP Pop Conference #2 - Hallelujah
Filed under: folk, authenticity, recording, distribution, indie, architecture, reviews, writing, rock, music — alimarcus

I’m always a big fan of song analyses through cover versions. The psychology behind cover songs is so fascinating, so when the versions drastically change from version to version it’s like a cosmic game of Telephone. Cosmic in the Gram Parsons sense. (non sequiter: Can anybody tell me why 4 is cosmic?)

Michael Barthel’s chronology of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was entertaining and very much of-this-era, in the sense that his focus on the song was about where in TV and film the various versions have been licensed. The validation of the popularity of the song, and implicity, the meaning of the song, depended on the media outlets which employed it’s services. I would have appreciated a more poetic approach, really looking at the lyrics of each version, but I was satisifed with his witty, sarcastic and humorous approach.

The basic gist is that Cohen’s original recording is very different from the later, more popular covers. They are most likely based on a 1988 performance of Cohen’s, which John Cale covered, and the subsequently Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, and everybody else and their mother. Nobody that Barthel brought up has bothered to do a cover of the original version which is strikingly dissimilar to the 90’s, 00’s versions. Cohen’s original was wry, ironic, dour. The others are one-dimensionally sad, and Barthel illustrated this, what he called “emotional flatness,” by showing the repetetive overuse in shows like “The OC” and “Scrubs.” He clearly felt that the song, in it’s newer versions and particular placements, had been reduced to a cliche. His actual words were that the TV shows were, in effect, “reducing a song about the varieties of grace to a mere lament.”

A few things.

Did you know that it was John Cale who switched the word “broken” in for Cohen’s “lonely”? That’s my favorite part of the song. Interesting.
Barthel’s delivery was in the spirit of the absurd, mirrored in his opinions about the licensing choices as well, eliciting loud laughter when he said that the song makes “even the shallowest character seem tragic,” showing a picture of Shrek on the screen. I wish that he had gone beyond laughter, beyond mocking, and made a larger point about the song itself, about the versatility of Cohen as a writer, or the nature of the song that has allowed it to perpetuate such a strong lineage of associations. Because even if it has been reduced to a cliche, it’s still an extraordinary achievement, and is, few would disagree, an extraordinary song.

Speaking of cliches, Charlie Kronengold made a necessary point about cliches in his talk today as well. Through a series of examples of music I’ve never heard, he arrived at the truism that cliches are part of human nature, that they themselves are truisms. People should not be so negative about them.

Kronengold’s talk left me wondering about the cliches that enter the lexicon because of a popular song. He spoke of the other way around, the cliches pulled from life or experience that are in song, but I went off on a tangent in my head. Phrases like “knockin’ on heaven’s door,” “shelter from the storm,” “the times, they are a’changin’,” and any reference to some sort of knowledge or peace found in the blowing wind always, always make me think of Bob Dylan. And I think that these songs sort of created the cliches that we use in regular talk. Only strange and curious characters like myself use these phrases as direct references in regular conversation; I assume that most people just use the phrases because they express something particular.

So we know how popular culture informs the language of our art, but have we really thought about how our art informs the language of popular culture?

[lizzytysh]

Thanks, Dick. I enjoyed reading this, too. I agree with the points he makes about cliches; those that come through everyday experience, as well as those that arrive through music.


~ Lizzy

[hydriot]

When I was a teenager I used to groan at all the cliches that pepper the pages of Shakespeare ... until one day I woke up to the reality that what I was reading was their very first use!

A cliche is a literary medal. Who would not be proud to invent a phrase so apt, so perfectly describing some common human experience, that it becomes worn with over-use?

[blonde madonna]

Thank you Dick for putting us onto the EMP Pop Conference. I didn’t know about it either but it looks interesting (if you live in Seattle).
Michael Barthel, who also runs the Clap Clap blog, and has said he will most likely post a written version of his presentation on the web.

http://www.emplive.org
http://www.clapclap.org

[lizzytysh]

A cliche is a literary medal. Who would not be proud to invent a phrase so apt, so perfectly describing some common human experience, that it becomes worn with over-use?

Very true, Hydriot. I laughed when you were saying how you used to groan at all the cliches in Shakespeare's writing, until you realized that you were reading their very first use.

We find ourselves doing this with any number of Leonard's lines... and even with the single word Hallelujah, it has taken on/incorporates the multi-layered tone of Leonard's original usage.


~ Lizzy

[dick]

Madonna - Please post a heads-up when the full presentation gets online. Would like to read it all.

Been decades since I was in Seattle... but now have another reason to want to fit it into travel plans.... maybe along with Edmonton??

Building alone quite a sight.

[dick]

Full lecture script is on the clap clap org link provided in Madonna's message --

worth a scroll through!

[blonde madonna]

Here's to you Dick, looking at it now (hate waiting for each of the downloads) and find Barthel's take on the covers interesting.

[Dilly]

Oh for God's sake, Lizzytish, Halleluijah (musically, religiously and prayerfully) has a history that predates Mr Cohen by thousands of years.
Please get off the sycophantic and ill-informed roundabout.

[lizzytysh]

. . . Leonard's original usage.

I guess it always helps to be even more specific than what one may consider necessary, so I'll do that now.

. . . Leonard's original usage and particular applications in his own song. Whereas, the historically and commonly-accepted usages of the word "Hallelujah," such as in hymns that I and others have sung since childhood, do not have tones and shades of sarcasm and bitter irony, but rather focus on reverence; Leonard introduced the former with his song, incorporating them alongside the standard, latter application.



~ Lizzy

[Dilly]

Lizzy writes - "Whereas, the historically and commonly-accepted usages of the word "Hallelujah," such as in hymns that I and others have sung since childhood, do not have tones and shades of irony and sarcasm, but rather reverence only; Leonard introduced the former with his song. "

Don't take this too personally,please, but why do you presume that your interpretation of the use of Halleluijah is everyone else's interpretation, too? Or that it's correct?

If you go back into the Judaeo-Biblical and then the Christian use of the word and on into the literary uses you will find irony, scorn, happiness, loss, celebration and a thousand other shades of happiness, sorrow and of the ironic in it's use.
Not everything begins and ends with Mr Cohen, talented though he is.

Your sweeping statement that Mr Cohen introduced the notion of irony into the word Halleuijah through his song is mind-bogglingly sweeping and dismisses everything that came before -including the sometimes,unintentional, irony of its use in the Old Testament.

[lizzytysh]

Hi Dilly ~

I'm the first to admit that my biblical knowledge is limited. You're right that "not everything begins and ends with Mr. Cohen;" however, what I said was honestly meant. I would be very interested in reading your quotations here that support your statement:

the Judaeo-Biblical and then the Christian use of the word and on into the literary uses you will find irony, scorn, happiness, loss, celebration and a thousand other shades of happiness, sorrow and of the ironic in it's use.

Thanks for assisting me in my edification and understanding. Seriously.


~ Lizzy