From weddings and funerals to blockbuster films and TV dramas, from major sporting events to televised singing competitions, from political rallies to drunken karaoke nights, “Hallelujah” has been repeatedly rolled out to the point of severe oversaturation. Music journalist Alan Light, author of the 2012 book “The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of ‘Hallelujah,’” calls the song “one of the most loved, most performed and most misunderstood compositions of all time,” and it’s hard to argue with his assessment.
Thanks to its hymn-like pace, Biblical allusions, slow-building melody and an emotional Rorschach test of a chorus, “Hallelujah” has become the go-to over the last two decades for anyone looking to inject heart-tugging, eye-moistening, mic-dropping musical gravitas into, well, practically any situation that demands it. Though it certainly wasn’t what he was referring to, many kinds of “Hallelujah”s - as in, versions of Cohen’s song - exist as well, but with wildly varying degrees of value. It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with emotion.” I say all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have an equal value.
“The song explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist. “Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means, ‘Glory to the Lord,’” the late Leonard Cohen once noted when asked about “Hallelujah,” quite possibly the best-known song in his rich and enduring catalog of compositions.
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