“Never Enough”: A Neuroscientist Explains Addiction.Empathy Deficit Disorder: Can You Retrain Your Brain?.“Emotionally Immature Parents”: Quotes for Adult Kids.“Frozen”: What Are the Meanings and Messages?.National Coming Out Day 2016: “Stand in the Light”.
“Hallelujah”: One of the Greatest Songs Explained.An erotically charged lyric fit for a Yom Kippur choir or a Christmas collection. A song based in Old Testament language that a teen idol can sing. Holy or broken, there is still hallelujah.Įric Liebetrau‘s Boston Globe review of The Holy or the Broken contains this apt summation from Light: Critics may have fixated on the gloom and doom of his lyrics, but this is his offering of hope and perseverance in the face of a cruel world. But Cohen is telling us, without resorting to sentimentality, not to surrender to despair or nihilism. Love will break our hearts, music will offer solace that we may or may not hear, we will be faced with joy and with pain. Like our forefathers, and the Bible heroes who formed the foundation of Western ethics and principles, we will be hurt, tested, and challenged. Every word, holy or broken – this is the fulcrum of the song as Cohen first wrote it. ‘A blaze of light in every word.’ That’s an amazing line. “Both biblical heroes are brought down to earth, and risk surrendering their authority, because of the allure of forbidden love.”īut the song’s main premise, says Light, occurs in the third verse: “the value, even the necessity of the song of praise in the face of confusion, doubt, or dread.” Until then it’s hallelujah.’Īn available book excerpt ( Rolling Stone ) also provides verse by verse interpretations, including the Biblical references to David (“the baffled king”) as well as Samson and Delilah (“She tied you to a kitchen chair / she broke your throne, she cut your hair”). Not from preachers who are chaste and understanding of nothing that is human in this world. It’s not the time you were together in their place-so perfect, like a second home. It’s not the face of strangers who will offer you their lines and hot needles. In Alan Light‘s 2012 book, The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah,” he describes one of Jeff Buckley‘s (1966-1997) concert introductions to the tune: ‘But there are moments when we can…reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.'”
#HALLELUJAH LYRICS RUFUS WAINWRIGHT FULL#
Ryan Dombal, Pitchfork, notes that “…the meaning of the song changes depending on how a singer arranges these various verses–Cohen’s original was released when he was 50, and it’s more resigned than Jeff Buckley‘s comparatively lustful and dramatic cover from 1994’s Grace.”Īccording to Ashley Fetters, The Atlantic, Cohen was “ambiguous about what his ‘Hallelujah,’with its sexual scenery and its religious symbolism, truly ‘meant.’ ‘This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled,’ Cohen has said. For further info regarding “Hallelujah” variations, see this submission to an online forum on the subject.) (For song samples, click on the artists’ names above. lang, Brandi Carlile, and Rufus Wainwright-were allowed by Cohen to choose among many different options. What does “ Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) mean? For that matter, which of the multiple versions of the song’s lyrics are we talking about? Covering artists-of which there are hundreds, including John Cale, Jeff Buckley, k.d. Leonard Cohen said the song represented absolute surrender in a situation you cannot fix or dominate, that sometimes it means saying, ‘I don’t fucking know what’s going on, but it can still be beautiful.’ Alan Light, The Holy or the Broken, quoting guitarist Colin Frangicetto about “Hallelujah”
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