leonardcohenforum.com

mwaldman wrote:

cloudlea wrote:Thanks smcx I found the program on Listen Again. My preference would be

1 Leonard
2 John Cale
3 Jeff Buckley

Never the X Factor version

I would say that the John Cale and Jeff Buckley versions tie for second place (I keep going back and forth on which one I like better), but Leonard is certainly Number One! I finally listened to the Alexandra Burke version - long on commercialism, short on true feeling for the song.

Let's be honest: Leonards original album version is crappy, too. The sound is awful, almost pathetic. Be realistic: No one I know of, who is not a strong Cohen fanatic, likes this version, and there's good reasosn for this ...
The live version on Cohen live is better, but I likes this years's live performance even better.

I would rank it like this:

very good versions:
- Cale
- Buckley
- cohen live 2008

good versions:
- wainwright
- cohen live 1993
- KD lang
- Wir sind Helden

average versions
- Bono
- Bon Jovi
- Nilsen,Lind & Co

bad versions
- Cohen on Various positions

total crap versions
- A. Burke

Hi Actaion.

I agree with your top three choices, but I could never discount Leonard's original, as it was the first version and it meant so much to me, at the time. Admittedly the album doesn't have the greatest production and is very much a product of the Eighties. As I've said previously, I expect Leonard's forthcoming live version to be the definitive one. Personally, I would rate Alexandra's version as average, since she's at least made an effort, but I would relegate Bono's version to the "Total Crap" dept.

Cheers, John E

Yes, I must agree, Bono's version has to be relegated to the "Total garbage" section. A cover that seems totally lacking in any sensitivity to the meaning of the song and which seems to be striving to be different just for the sake of it. Certainly much much worse than Leonard's original which I quite like actually. Like John E, it was the first version I heard, from the first LC album I bought and on the grounds that "The first cut is the deepest", remains special to me.

I love Allison Crowe's version of Hallelujah. You can find it on YouTube.

Leonard & band did some very fine versions of hallelujah live in the uk this year. their glastonbury one was was excellent. it's much better than the various positions versione...and in my opinion better than cale's and buckley's.

the bishop of croydon - leonard's biggest clerical fan - mentioned on page 16 and elsewhere - was on sunday's the big questions.

he was in the audience and contributed several times - first appearing 20 minutes into programme.

subjects covered include manners, is britain a christian country and should unfit parents be allowed to breed?

Nicky Campbell hosts the first edition of the new series of The Big Questions live from Croydon.

On the panel are Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun; Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis Trust; Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Queen's chaplain; and Professor Richards Dawkins, the renowned atheist...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programme ... questions/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... rc=a_syn31

hallelujah referenced and leonard namechecked in thought for the day discussing choral singing.

there's a dedicated thought for the day site http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought - but it hasn't yet been updated.

until then, the thought can be accessed via link below - 07.40 approx.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 805583.stm

Nice song

.

My choice for best version of Hallelujah is the live version 1993 on "Blossoms of Heaven, Ashes of Hell" tour which seems to me to put all others where they belong (apart from Leonard's own other versions, of course), in various positions of nowhere. Just my humble opinion, though.

One surprisingly unforeseen horror of the "Hallelujah" saga. Tonight, I changed platforms at Leicester Square tube station, only to hear (you guessed it) some guy whining THAT SONG! Arrrrrrrggggh! Is it now going to meet the same eternal fate as Ralph McTell's "Streets of London"? I guess there is little point in me writing to The Mayor of London to ask that "Hallelujah" be kept sacred?

John - are you deliberately trying to be insulting or does it come naturally?

that busker was ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-------------
JUST KIDDING - i agree with your sentiments.

p.s. re the thought for the day post i made above - it's now belatedly gone `live` at the beeb (audio at link) :



Thought for the Day, 31 December 2008

Brian Draper

This Christmas, I kept catching myself singing hallelujah. It was less about the reason for the season, though, and more that two versions of the same song were top of the charts. I have to confess I like Alexandra Burke's X-Factor gospel version of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'; but I can't help sympathise with the purists, too ­ who were so outraged at her joyful interpretation that they downloaded enough copies of Jeff Buckley's exquisitely fragile, bluesy cover to propel him to number two.

Whichever way you listen to it, though, Cohen's song is no simple karaoke sing-along. It's an honest and painful exploration of love, life and God, and the way we respond amid the brokenness of relationship. He uses the example of David, who was not just a politician or theologian but a musician ­ 'the Elvis of the Bible', as Bono has described him; 'the baffled king composing hallelujah', as Cohen puts it; who fell for Bathsheba and from grace, yet who continued to express himself always in relation to God, through so many psalms of both praise and lament.

Bono wrote that these psalms prepared him 'for the honesty of John Lennon, the baroque language of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, the open throat of Al Green and Stevie Wonder. When I hear these singers,' he said, 'I am reconnected to a part of me I have no explanation for - my "soul".'

And that's what music, at its best, surely helps us to do ­ reconnect with soul in a way that little else can. The creative tension between God's absence and presence, or between a hallelujah of triumph or despair, does not have to be resolved. The psalms, like Cohen's song, are gospel and blues; soulful musicality, not cold-hearted dogma.

Cohen's own rendition contains an extra verse to the two at the top of the charts. 'There's a blaze of light/In every word/It doesn't matter which you heard/The holy or the broken Hallelujah,' he sings. 'And even though/It all went wrong/I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah'.

Echoes of David, surely. Like any work of art, it's less about pinning truth lifelessly like a butterfly to a wall, but letting it fly. You might even say that the way God revealed himself through his son ­ born into poverty and brokenness ­ was itself a work of art. The crucial thing is not whether you believe you've nailed the meaning, but whether you let your soul reconnect - whichever version of Hallelujah you find yourself singing at the end of a tumultuous year.
*****************************

Brian Draper is creative director of MCA, a consultancy which seeks to nurture spiritual intelligence among business leaders. He is an associate lecturer at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, where he worked for the last seven years as lecturer in contemporary culture. He was also editor of Third Way in a former life. Brian has written Searching 4 Faith, a contemplative exploration of faith within today’s postmodern culture, and he regularly ‘thinks for the day’ on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/religion/ ... rch+author

On a more facetious, satirical note, here's a post on The Daily Mash, the UK's answer to The Onion: SONG EVERYONE PRETENDS TO UNDERSTAND IS CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts ... 812221474/

...Our darling offspring won’t hear a word: they’ve all got Christmas iPods stuffed into their mini lugholes and are jiving away up there, in total silence. Hallelujah!

It’s a cold and a broken hallelujah, though, isn’t it?...

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/l ... 531757.ece

Anybody see Charlie Brookers Screenwipe show on BBC recently? When talking about the X- Factor Brooker made a remark about X Factor winner Alexandra Burke's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, he claimed it is "ruined forever as a song destined to be played at thick people's funerals".

Harsh but true - no doubt replacing Robbie Williams 'Angel' as the Chavs Funeral fave.