Sunday 11 January 2009

Sunday night rock 'n' roll covers

"Hallelujah" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen originally released on his 1984 studio album Various Positions. A live recording of the song from 1988, containing additional lyrics, appears on the 1994 album, Cohen Live.

Hallelujah has now been recorded more than 180 times for release and has been featured in the soundtracks of numerous movies and television shows

"Hallelujah" was originally written and composed over the course of a year, and is said to have been a frustrating and difficult process for Cohen. Cohen says he wrote at least eighty verses, filling two notebooks - discarding most of the verses in the process of crafting the song.

Cohen first recorded the song at Quadrasonic Sound, New York in June 1984, working with producer John Lissauer. The next recording of this song by Leonard Cohen was captured live in Austin, Texas on October 31, 1988 with production by Leanne Ungar and Bob Metzger.

"Hallelujah", in its original studio version, is a 4 minute 39 second song in C major. The released live version, with its different lyrical content, clocks in at 6:54. On the song's melody, Rufus Wainwright has commented that "It's an easy song to sing. The music never pummels the words. The melody is almost liturgical and conjures up religious feelings. It's purifying." In the section of the lyrics "the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift", the chords move as described in the lyrics as follows: F ("the fourth", in the tonality of C major), G ("the fifth"), Am ("the minor fall"), F ("the major lift").


The Original - Leonard Cohen



Remarkable - Jeff Buckley (audio only)



Excellent - K.D. Lang




(Nothing Follows)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

leonard cohen's masterpiece works on a few levels for me. it's usually my facebook signature tune, well some of the time. when i get bored, it goes back there. it reminds me of the uplifting spiritual songs using hallelujah or halleluia as the chorus. whether you like religion or not, the choir singing (tends to be more anglican than others from this once young chorister’s point of view) can be very uplifting. but leornard probably hasn't written the song for that reason. i haven't studied it, so i'm writing what i think. it is a bit downbeat at times, but still using chords that stir the emotions. that's what most songs are about. it's different in the way like when lee marvin sings 'wandering star' in the film 'paint your wagon' or ‘dave mason’ from 'the reels' is singing ‘this guy's in love with you' or some of dave's other covers. a lot of earthiness there. it's like you or i could sing it. maybe we can. of course, hallelujah by leonard is the original. doesn't always mean the best sounding. it sometimes depends upon when you first heard it, and where you were, or who you were with. hey, i heard hallelujah in woolies today whilst shopping. not too sure who's version it was, but i loved it.

Anonymous said...

Try this version....

http://tinyurl.com/7lz7qp

Great harmonies, and Kurt Nilsen's voice is quite amazing.