Hallelujah Poll, poll Halleluja....

1.Jeff Buckley
2.Leonard Cohen
3.John Cale
4.KD Lang
8.Rufus Wainwright

These are the only ones I've heard. I think the first one I heard was Buckley's and I really liked it at the time, but I didn't know it was a Cohen song even though I was listening to a lot of Cohen at the time too. Now the only one I really like is Cohen's original.

Cohen's, in part for Jennifer Warnes.

somehow have only heard Cohen and Buckley. and I hear Buckleys first, as an emo teen, and didn't know it was a cover until years later. so

can

cale

cake

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guL4KgkheoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSJbYWPEaxw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dC-Ccb8wxU

Satanic backwards exorcist version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZWGo_aJ2iE&feature=related

Tim Minchin, presumably the "ginger-haired piano playing comedian"

He's Australian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZYs9vaMlPw

This song has turned into Amazing Grace, and I mean that in a very bad way. Abbott is right about Shrek being the culprit.

My most hated song.

Maybe you can blame Shrek for (re)popularizing this tune, but the actual scene in Shrek where it's used is very well done and touching.

When the scene started, at first I was like "omg, they're using that old Leonard Cohen song in a scene where a green ogre is heartbroken because of a princess", but in the end I was basically in tears.

I heard there was a secret poll
That Mark G made to please a troll

i like Cale's voice but not singing this song, just doesn't work for me. don't hate Bono but his version may be the worst. Fall Out Boy don't really cover this song, they have a song called "Hum Hallelujah" that references it and interpolates the chorus for a few bars is all.

lol lol eazy

4.KD Lang 1

Seriously underrated imo

I heard there was a secret poll
That Mark G made to please a troll

Yet bees can sometimes look like they won't sting you

Shit happens like this and when you see
yet even more versions, the fourth the fifth
it baffles you and you scream "NO MORE HALLELUJAH!!!!"

fall out boy

xpost doesn't rhyme and the syllables are all wrong. Still, it works as a rap.

The syllables work if you approach them like a Bob Dylan, a Bruce Springsteen, a Paul Simon or a Joni Mitchell. :)

OK, still doesn't rhyme.

and there's something going on here
but you don't really care for music,
do you, Mr Geir?

This song has turned into Amazing Grace, and I mean that in a very bad way. Abbott is right about Shrek being the culprit.

― Chaka Mo Khanlier (kkvgz), Sunday, December 5, 2010 7:03 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Or maybe even "I Got You Babe".

and there's something going on here
but you don't really care for music,
do you, Mr Geir?

I heard there was a secret poll
That Mark G made to please a troll

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Sunday, December 5, 2010 10:34 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

lol

Do any of the cover versions use the lyrics of the original Cohen studio version? The last verse about standing before the lord of song has always been the most powerful of the verses for me, but it seems like every cover version I've heard springs from Cale's cover which used alternate lyrics that Cohen provided him.

OH: "That's not a love song, it's a song they play on telethons when lots of people have died..."

!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItXygU9SJCA

I wish Cohen recorded a simple guitar or piano arrangement of this, with him singing. His phrasing is better than the cover artists (because he wrote it) but the production feels dated.

There is no perfect recording of this song, is what I’m saying. It remains pure potential, a shadow on a wall, an Orphic ceremony on the side of an urn.

This song has turned into Amazing Grace, and I mean that in a very bad way. Abbott is right about Shrek being the culprit.

― Chaka Mo Khanlier (kkvgz), Sunday, December 5, 2010 7:03 AM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is sort of true but I think the greatness of the song allows it to transcend the people who misunderstand the nuances of it. The real sentiment of the song has nothing to do with the shlocky uses it’s put to.

Cohen's live versions get around the production of the original.

I think it's become a ceremonial standard in part because, unlike Amazing Grace et. al., it sounds religious but isn't religious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3XRVJDfjnQ