Please watch this rendition of Hallelujah (From 'Shrek'/Leonard Cohen)

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Here's the original:

Back in 1997 I was performing in a tavern.

I was wearing a fedora pretty much like the one Leonard wore in the video. A guy asked me if I was Leonard Cohen.

"No", I replied.

"You sound just like him", he said.

"Nope. Not him. Who is he?"

"A Canadian poet." he replied. "I really like your work. Do you have a published book of poetry I could buy?"

"Only my personal copy. I sold all the others for $10 apiece. If I sold you my last, I'd have to charge you $20.00, but I'll sign it for you."

And the transaction was made.
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Here's my interpretation. It's pretty much about sex and music as a way of filling the gap in Jewish identity religion.

The religion goes like this: "I am a Jew. I don't know if there is a g.d, but I, a Jew, am chosen by Him, whether or not He exists. What a never ending source of angst that is!"

It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift

His voice actually performs these lines. Listen closely.

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

He spent years on the song. The final was 60 verses long; seriously reduced to 4 for recording.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

An obvious allusion to the story of David and Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite.

She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

He's blending his own experience with David's here. The illicit sexual encounter eliciting "Hallelujah!" As his own and as David's fall, so also Samson's fall, when the Nazirite vow was ended with the sheared locks.

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?

Here's the angst. He doesn't even know the name, even though the song incorporates it. But it's his angst, not yours.

There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

The holy is the one alone with g.d. The broken is the one in flagrante.

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

In the absence of feeling the presence of g.d, the touch of the sex partner suffices.

And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

And that's as good as it is likely to get, holy or broken. Whatever! "What's it to ya?"

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My apologies to any who feel that I'm disrespecting the dead. Never fear, I too will die. In the meantime ...


My bad. Like I said though, many different variations of the song, with 60 verses to choose from. Here's the version that I interpreted.