The Holy or the Broken

by Alan Light

  In the 2010 season of American Idol, “Hallelujah” turned up not once, but twice—performed first by Tim Urban, and then by eventual champion Lee DeWyze. At this point, in fact, conspiracy theorists started to posit that Simon Cowell had some financial stake in the song, and that was why he kept returning to it on his series; Cowell actually had to issue a statement that he has no special interest in the composition or its publishing rights.

  Urban did the song in full contemplative mode—alone, with his guitar—and impressed the judges. Ellen DeGeneres, who served as one of the panelists that year, came out from behind their table and hugged him. But it would be DeWyze who, later in the season, used “Hallelujah” to propel himself into the Idol stratosphere.

  In the summer of the following year, before The Voice and The X Factor had watered down the show’s impact as the only singing game in town, Idol mania still ran sufficiently rampant that a line of overexcited fans with signs and T-shirts circled the block outside New York City’s Gramercy Theatre when I met DeWyze in a downstairs lounge to talk about the song.

  “We got to one of the final weeks and they were going over all these songs with me they were thinking about having me sing,” said DeWyze. “I got to sit down with Simon Cowell in his trailer, and out of nowhere he was just like, ‘What about “Hallelujah”?’ Jason Castro had done it the year before, and Tim Urban did it that season, so when they picked it for me and I was like, ‘Uh, guys, we did this already this year, and last year.’ But Simon said, ‘I want to hear your voice sing this song.’ ”

  Once the selection was made, DeWyze started by listening to “probably eight different versions” of the song, and tried to come up with an arrangement that fit. “I really wanted to do something that was a little more me, put my spin on it,” he said. “I went on the show and I had a little gospel choir with me, which was cool. It’s a very waltzy gospel song.”

  He opened solo with his guitar, before a string section came in behind him. At the first chorus, a choir entered from backstage. By the second and final verse of this performance (the “marble arch” verse), a full orchestra had joined for a roof-raising finish. The judges called the rendition “unbelievable” and “stunning”; DeWyze expressed that he was initially a little skeptical of Cowell’s choice, and thanked him for making the call.

  Post-Idol, DeWyze has used the song as the encore in his concerts, experimenting with different combinations of verses. “My favorite is, ‘I heard that there’s a God above / but all I ever learned from love / was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. / But it’s not a cry that you hear at night’—all that. For me, it’s like all of these things that are kind of bad are happening, and what that verse said to me is that your faith is going to come down to a broken plea to God.”

  After DeWyze’s Idol performance, MTV.com ran a story titled “Why American Idol Needs to Retire ‘Hallelujah’ as Soon as Possible.” The site’s Idol correspondent, Kyle Anderson, wrote, “As songwriting goes, it’s pretty close to perfect. But that’s just the problem, as too many people are able to make it sound too good. . . . No performance moving forward will top [Jason] Castro’s, but there will also never be a bad version of it. Singing ‘Hallelujah’ proves absolutely nothing.”

  • • •

  Meanwhile, the “Hallelujah” train kept a-rollin’. On July 9, 2011, in Montreal, U2 played a section of the song as an introduction to “Where the Streets Have No Name,” presumably in tribute to the author’s hometown. They skipped it at the next show, in Toronto, but then kept this segment in the set for the final six shows of the record-setting 360° tour, including the concluding night, July 30, in Moncton, New Brunswick—ironically, the province where Cohen had launched his own tour.

  Bono was uncharacteristically vague when talking about the decision to add “Hallelujah” to the set list. “Often how U2 works is that we do something by accident and if it connects, we’ll try it again until it stops,” he said. He noted that he’s often turned to the word hallelujah over the years while searching for something to stabilize himself mid-performance. “Onstage, you have all kinds of distracting thoughts, sometimes dark thoughts—some of the brightest moments of clarity I’ve ever had have been onstage, and I’ve also had some terrible times performing, so I’ve always used that word if it seems to fit in a place.”

  The singer adds, though, that the position of “Hallelujah” leading into “Where the Streets Have No Name” is significant. “That song is one of those invitations where you say to the audience, ‘Do you want to go someplace else? Shall we go there together?’ I’ve even, in a way that some would find obnoxious, used the Psalms in that slot. So ‘Hallelujah’ is such a powerful thought there, such a great way in.”

  The following month, “Hallelujah” attained yet another landmark in its public use; the song served as part of the state funeral for Canada’s New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Toronto on August 27 for the public farewell to the country’s much-loved opposition leader. Steven Page, the former lead singer of Canadian folk-pop band Barenaked Ladies, delivered a stark, dry reading of the song, backed by just a piano and cello, standing next to the flag-covered casket in Roy Thomson Hall.

  Fitting for an iconoclastic figure like Layton, Page’s powerful performance included an unexpurgated version of the lyrics, through all seven verses—ending with Cohen’s concluding “even though it all went wrong” lines. It was a successful incorporation of both of the song’s defining edits, but one that had been attempted surprisingly few times.

  And just when it seemed the TV singing shows might give it a rest for a while, “Hallelujah” turned up yet again, on the semifinal show of the 2011 X Factor season. This time it was former burrito slinger Josh Krajcik alone at the piano, singing the song one more time, and moving Paula Abdul to tears.

  Regardless of the burgeoning “Hallelujah” exhaustion expressed by some critics, of course, there’s no going back. Even if the film and TV placements stop and the flood of cover versions slows to a trickle—which is presumably inevitable, given the way pop appetites work—the impact and legacy of “Hallelujah” are now permanent. What the sprawling range of recordings and performances in 2010 and 2011 reveal is that its meanings are still shifting, still up for grabs.

  Jeff Buckley’s version established the meaning of “Hallelujah” for a while: His expression of romantic sorrow was solidified on September 11, 2001, and then disseminated through The O.C. and House and One Tree Hill and all the other TV dramas that knew they could put that particular emotion to work. But Susan Boyle’s atrocious reading of the song in a Christmas context, or k. d. lang’s soaring rendition to kick off the Olympic Games, or the song’s appearance at my Yom Kippur services have as little to do with Buckley’s interpretation as with Cohen’s original. Listening to the song has turned into a public event rather than a private moment.

  “Hallelujah” has persevered, mutated, expanded over the decades, accruing more and more attached memories through all of these interpretations and deployments. And as it was being presented by Leonard Cohen to adoring audiences in Tel Aviv and Moscow and Las Vegas night after night, it found yet another life. For now, at least, it has become a song of survival, a song of triumph.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  So what is it about this song?

  Many dedicated followers of Leonard Cohen would argue that “Hallelujah” is not even this one songwriter’s greatest achievement. “Dance Me to the End of Love,” “Bird on the Wire,” “Suzanne,” or “Tower of Song” might all place higher in a poll of fan favorites. In a list of his favorite Cohen songs for the 2010 Rolling Stone “Playlist” issue, Rufus Wainwright didn’t even put “Hallelujah” in his top ten. (Wainwright became even more deeply associated with Cohen when Lorca Cohen gave birth to Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, her daughter and Cohen’s second grandchild in 2011. Given Wainwright’s touring schedule, Lorca is raising Viva, though Rufus and Rufus’ husband visit as o
ften as possible.)

  The singers who have performed Cohen’s work most frequently, such as Jennifer Warnes and Judy Collins, have tended to avoid the song. Until recently, most major magazine and newspaper profiles of Cohen didn’t so much as mention “Hallelujah” when they reviewed the highlights of his career.

  “I had no idea at all that this would become a historic song, and I’m still baffled,” said Cohen’s longtime engineer and producer Leanne Ungar. “Yes, it is an incredible song, but Leonard has written so many worthy songs. Why this one and not ‘Anthem,’ ‘Ain’t No Cure for Love,’ ‘In My Secret Life,’ ‘The Future,’ or a dozen more?”

  As we’ve seen, though, there are several elements that distinguish “Hallelujah” not only from Cohen’s own body of work, but also from other crowning moments in pop music. If, as k. d. lang posited, people are hungry for spirituality in music—or, at least, are hungry for spirituality, which music is able to provide—then “Hallelujah” provides a sure-fire solution. In a world polarized by the black-and-white politicization of religion, the song offers a rare example of both reassurance and doubt. Obviously it has a recurrent prayerful element, but it’s also evident in even the most superficial reading that the verses undercut any sense of simple, blind faith.

  Unlike the breathtaking precision of some of Cohen’s songs mentioned above, the lyrics to “Hallelujah” are confusing, slightly out of focus. Perspective shifts between verses. Images from different stories are crosscut, adding up to a mood more than a single coherent narrative. The effect is that, whether you hear it on your iPod or in a wedding ceremony, it can be as “religious” a song as you want it to be—a contemporary hymn or just something with a vague aura of holiness.

  “Hallelujah” has continued to demonstrate its ability to fit the changing mood, and needs, of its listeners over time. In the alternative-rock ’90s, gloom was chic. In the aftermath of September 11, survival and defiance were the order of the day. It’s not surprising that the popular songs of each moment would reflect each mood. The exceptional thing this time is that one song was malleable enough to sustain for the whole ride.

  Of course it helps that certain lines and even whole verses of “Hallelujah” are often simply jettisoned because they don’t neatly line up with the message the singer is choosing to deliver. “I remember when I moved in you” clearly wasn’t going to make the cut for Susan Boyle’s version. “She tied you to a kitchen chair” doesn’t fit all of the circumstances into which “Hallelujah” is now thrown, though it’s actually surprising how often, and in which contexts, it is retained. Only have ninety seconds to put a song across on television? Slice it down to two verses and you still have something substantial to sink your teeth into.

  Though Cohen has given his unspoken approval regarding whatever choices each singer makes, and indeed was modifying the song himself from the day it first came out, some argue that these alterations are a betrayal of the song. Others feel that the one-dimensional overuse of “Hallelujah” in formulaic TV dramas flattened the song’s real impact in a way that can never be recovered.

  In the end, though, isn’t this what pop songs do? Once a track has been released, the public takes it and goes with it, or they don’t. If it succeeds, it will resonate with fans in ways the songwriter may have never imagined.

  An interpretation, by listeners or by another artist, can permanently alter the world’s impression of a song, whether the composer likes it or not—“Born in the U.S.A.” is still the most obvious example, but ask R.E.M. about “The One I Love” or Sting about “Every Breath You Take.” This lack of control over how his songs were heard and utilized was one of the factors that literally drove Kurt Cobain to an early grave. This inherent ambiguity is only amplified for a song like “Hallelujah,” which so adamantly refuses to connect all the dots.

  • • •

  When the Canadian Tenors appeared at the 2011 Emmy Awards and sang “Hallelujah” during the mandatory annual video tribute to television industry people who passed away during the year, it triggered the loudest “Hallelujah” backlash to date. Salon.com wrote after the Emmys that “ ‘Hallelujah’ has become to music supervisors what ‘At Last’ is to lazy wedding DJs—cheap emotional shorthand for overwhelming spiritual feelings. And in the process, a beautiful, mysterious song has been turned into a tacky karaoke number, and become so common that it’s been drained of its power to move.” Writer David Daley added that the awards show montage “represented the victory of sentiment over meaning.”

  Kenny Mellman of the drag cabaret duo Kiki and Herb tweeted, “Just because Leonard Cohen’s song has ‘hallelujah’ in it, doesn’t mean that it is an appropriate song for the people who died tribute.” (One of the responses to Mellman read, “I bet he regrets writing it now.”) The Jewish online magazine Jewcy.com put it another way a few days later, on the occasion of Cohen’s seventy-seventh birthday. To honor the event, they wrote, “We’d like to go ahead and ask people to stop doing awful covers of ‘Hallelujah.’ If possible, we’d keep it to the John Cale version, the Jeff Buckley one, and of course, the one by the master himself.”

  To the general public, though, these concerns didn’t register, and the song seemed to score yet another bull’s-eye: According to a press release the group’s label issued, “Following the broadcast, sales of The Canadian Tenors’ self-titled debut album soared over 2500%, landing them on the Top 10 of Amazon.com, while downloads of their single for ‘Hallelujah’ jumped an amazing 15,000%.”

  It’s a bit surprising that no one has created a devastating “Hallelujah” parody yet. You would think that after all this time, and no shortage of ludicrous usages, there’s an opportunity for comedy—maybe not the full “Weird Al” Yankovic treatment, but at least a gentle poke at its ubiquity. The few, inevitable YouTube spoofs include such choruses as “I Don’t Like Tuna” or the Indian dinner celebration “My Lamb Bhuna” (food is the eternal go-to in the world of parody lyrics—just ask Weird Al). For now, though, the song still seems too sacred to spoof.

  Not long after the Emmy awards, Saturday Night Live presented a sketch that showed the “In Memoriam” montage from the “Adult Video Awards,” paying mock tribute to the fallen veterans in the porn industry. SNL’s Hal Willner said that there was talk of playing “Hallelujah” under the video, but it was voted down; instead, the show used the “inspirational” instrumental “Eclipse” by Jay Price.

  If “Hallelujah” continues to swing back from Buckley’s introspective, passionate take to a more open and inspirational reading, it will be interesting to see if Cohen’s original lyrics will become more popular. Since the song’s resurgence, the older artists have leaned toward his verses while the younger interpreters have stuck with the Cale/Buckley cut. But increasingly, it seems like what the performers of the song are striving for would be better served by a lyric that returns to the Lord of Song at the end, and offers a hallelujah of redemption rather than ending on a cold and broken hallelujah.

  A quite beautiful version of the song was posted to the Christian website Godvine.com in April 2012 by three young women from North Pole, Alaska, named Jodi, Alana, and Morgan. Over a solo piano, but at a slower tempo than the one that propels the forceful attack of Cale’s playing, they sing the first three verses associated with Buckley’s recording, but then end on Cohen’s, concluding “I did my best; it wasn’t much” verse rather than the “how to shoot at someone who outdrew you” verse.

  This cut makes for yet another layer of meaning in this song—focusing on the religious imagery, losing the doubt of “maybe there’s a God above” and “I don’t even know the name,” but also adding an element of physical desire with the “love is not a victory march” line. Church choirs and other singers who respond to the song from a religious perspective should take note.

  Its unknowable essence leaves “Hallelujah” wide open for interpretation, but crucially, it isn’t vague or flimsy. For every line that might get dropped or glossed over, there are al
so several lines that always provide strong landing points, regardless of the singer or which version brought them to the song. “I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, / but love is not a victory march” is a knockout no matter which message it is you’re conveying, and even singers with a hazy understanding of the themes can find something in “all I ever learned from love / is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.”

  The core of the song, its tense conviction, remains intact. There are good versions and bad versions, performances that are shallow and reductive and others that are revelations, but the magnificent thing is that the song stands strong and conveys undeniable feeling. The structure is rock-solid—it bends but does not break.

  It is easily exploited, but it has evolved and adapted and become imbued with its own legacy. “Hallelujah” may not mean the same thing to Jon Bon Jovi and Justin Timberlake, to Rufus Wainwright and the various American Idol contestants, but the feeling it gives to each of them is genuine and rooted in the same fundamental concepts—spirituality, struggle, perseverance.

  “ ‘Hallelujah’ has a powerful mood,” said Regina Spektor. “It’s in the DNA of the song. It makes anybody feel amazing to sing it. So many songs you have to sing a certain way, or at the right emotional temperature, or they just collapse. This song is pretty much indestructible.”

  Glen Hansard believes that all of the covers and licenses and seemingly endless uses of “Hallelujah” have not diminished its power in any way. “There are very few perfect songs in the world, but it’s really like a Hank Williams song—it’s strong enough to withstand any treatment.” Hansard said that he has sung it various times over the years with other people, but refuses to tackle it on his own. “It’s such an incredible holy grail of a song,” he said, “I just won’t touch it.”