Song 39: Hallelujah

Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

What's the point of my writing about 'Hallelujah' when a million words have already been written about it, indeed when a man called Alan Light has just written a well-received book called 'The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of 'Hallelujah''?  In the past i'd almost certainly have bought the book, but I don't think I will this time, in particular as, in an interview with Mr Light, he seemed to say that the Jeff Buckley version wasn't his favourite, indeed that it was in some way limited - so clearly, for all that he's an acclaimed music journalist whose written an acclaimed book, he's batshit mental and has terrible taste.

The Jeff Buckley version is the best version of 'Hallelujah'. 'Hallelujah' is a Jeff Buckley song.

Not that I haven't seen loads of other folk do it - for a while there it seemed to be played at every gig I ever went to - Rufus Wainwright, Damien Rice, Kathryn Williams, I saw all of them give it a shot. Then there's Bob Dylan and John Cale (pre-Buckley), Bono, kd lang, Alexandra Burke, even Bon Jovi, and countless, countless others.

And the fact that it has now become a modern standard means people have started calling it a Leonard Cohen song, rather than a Jeff Buckley song, as if the Buckley version is just one cover among many, rather than the definitive version.

Am I being perverse? Affording the great Leonard too little respect? I've seen Leonard Cohen doing this recently (on TV) in concert, and it was super - he does a great version of the song he wrote, no doubt. Though the original is not it. It's pretty horrid. A lot of what Leonard Cohen did in the 80s sounded pretty horrid, but 'Hallelujah' in particular, all plinky-plonky and dodgy backing vocals, dispassionate and not even that well phrased.

I love Leonard Cohen, I love his 2012 album 'Old Ideas', I love Famous Blue Raincoat and So Long, Marianne and If it Be Your Will and Suzanne and Bird on the Wire and Teachers and all that. I'm not sure I'd put Hallelujah in my 20 favourite Leonard Cohen songs.

He clearly cared a lot about the song, it took him two years and he apparently wrote more than 100 verses, but it was Cale initially, and then, of course Jeff Buckley who rescued it and elevated it.

Several, several posts ago, I asked "Is it the singer or the song?" Well, in this case, it's the singer. And Jeff Buckley is still not quite mainstream. He's still a cult figure who lots of people have not heard of, and whose one completed album 'Grace' has not sold more than a couple of million copies worldwide. By the end of this year, when we've seen at least one of the three films being made about him, he may finally be mainstream. But maybe not.

How can I make this post about 'Hallelujah' worth anything? Well, if you don't, by some miracle, know the song, it's worth something, and, if you'd forgotten just how magnificent and definitive and magical Jeff Buckley singing this song is (as I occasionally have), it's worth something.

Anyway, I'll just write a little about my experience of Jeff Buckley. I'm not so cool that I got into Jeff Buckley before he died. Dammit. I could have. In the early 90s, Caitlin Moran used to write a weekly "New Music" bit in The Times, and I still remember reading and being intrigued by her little interview with this handsome son of a cult singer, who she was clearly mesmerized by. Back then, as i've already said, i hardly bought any music, but if I had, this is what I was drawn to, and I carried on looking out for his name.

But you didn't hear all that much of it really for a while. 1995/6 was all about Britpop, there might have been the odd mention in the press but not much else, and then, in one of the NMEs sent by my mum to Kenya, I read in May 97 that Jeff Buckley was missing presumed dead in the Wolf River. I confess this seemed sad but I think I was more pressed by the fact that Bob Dylan had a life-threatening illness at the same time.

When I came home that summer, a chap called Rory Mee recommended Buckley to me, and even played me a bit, but the album begins with 'Mojo Pin' and I was not yet hooked.

It was not, in truth, til the summer of 98 that he finally got his claws into me. I think it was Alex Frith who simultaneously copied me 'Grace' and gave me 'Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk' for my birthday. From that point, it was definitely 'Hallelujah' above all. It was one of those moments (like the next song I'm going to write about) where I simply thought it was the best song i'd ever heard and I'd never ever heard anything like it. Initially I didn't realise it was a cover, perhaps I was the tiniest bit disappointed when I found out it was.

My best memory of it was a late summer boating trip on the Norfolk Broads and playing 'Hallelujah' (and also early Leonard Cohen, funnily enough) constantly - I have one particularly vivid image of a rainy early evening, looking for a palce to moor near some reeds, with 'Hallelujah' ringing out across the three boats of our party. Wonderful.

I wasn't the only guy on that trip who was under its spell, and indeed over the next year at university, it seemed to figure regularly. It was almost a password, a note of recognition.

As the year went on, I began to find out how good the rest of Jeff Buckley's output was - I actually love 'The Sky is a Landfill', 'Opened Once' and 'Morning Theft' from My Sweetheart the Drunk, and i went through phases of obsessing over, at different points, 'Lilac Wine', 'Last Goodbye' and 'Grace'. It is that title track which has finally won the Buckley race for me, the most extraordinary, wild, possessed vocal performance.

He didn't sound possessed on 'Hallelujah' -  it was controlled, mysterious, elegant, virtuoso, but not out-of-control. An underrated part of the majesty of 'Hallelujah' is his guitar work (Jeff Buckley was a stunning guitar player full stop), chiming slowly. What a talent he was! And, yes, if he'd written 'Hallelujah' it probably would have been the finest song he'd written. I'll give that to Leonard. I loved the words, well, of course I did - a story from the bible! About a man struggling with his faith! Called David! And he was a king! What's not to love?

Jeez, I'm listening to 'Hallelujah' now and all those moments come flooding back - it was Buckley's singing that made the words so extraordinary, though, his pronunciation of "cold and it's a broken", his tiny speech imepdiment on the r's, utterly magnificent. It's the phrasing that makes him, in my view, so much of a greater pleasure to listen to than his father Tim Buckley- there's something a little harsh and hammy about Tim Buckley some times, and even when he lets go, it sounds more like he's showing off than it does with Jeff. Again, perhaps I'm not respecting my elders enough.

So, yes, Hallelujah has become a modern standard, sung by every X-Factor contestant and every sensitive singer-songwriter going, but I wish it wasn't. To me, no one else's version is worth shit. 'Hallelujah' is a Jeff Buckley song.