Hallelujah

If you know me at all, you know that I like music and reading. Something about the imagery that words provide and the emotion it can generate is just... really amazing to me. And sounds can pull words out, emphasize, and stretch and pull you beyond literal meanings - you can depict sarcasm, humor, sorrow, and more all just from swell and pull of sounds.

I also am not really a fan of sequels. No need to add on more than was originally intended. If Lord of the Rings was meant to be a trilogy and written that way, fine. No need for Pocohantas #2 or all that jazz.

But there is an exception to that - a song I love very much and has over 300 versions of it, ranging from 3 to over 80 verses.

So I wanted to share it with you guys, and a few of my current favorites of the verses. And my favorites change quite often, since there are so many to choose from and all were written by the same man, the same genius, one night in a New York City hotel, reportedly sitting on the floor in his underwear banging his head on the floor to get them all to come out.

Hallelujah
Leonard Cohen

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well, it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall, and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Well your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the rood
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to the kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips, she drew the Hallelujah

Well baby, I've been here before
I've see this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you,
The Holy Dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Well maybe there's a God above
But all I really learned from Love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the Light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

You say I took the Name in vain
Well, I don't even know the Name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard:
The Holy or the Broken Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't Feel so I learned to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong,
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
with nothing on my lips but Hallelujah

*Capitals and arrangement of verses are entirely my interpretation, not Cohen's.

You can see some re-occuring themes here - like drawing breaths in and words out of lips (the power of speech/sounds), defensive explanations (what's it to you, do you, didn't come to fool you, wasn't much), the idea of a broken Hallelujah and not following the proper religious path, Love as something painful, and isolation. That's part of what pulls all the verses together and makes it more like Lord of the Rings sequels rather than a Disney one.

Dude, I love this song.