You know when you discover something and it's just...yours? It's like that television show that only you are watching. (Well, of course, it's not JUST you - it's a you and a few million others and probably quite a few million more on that if you count those who use Sky+ and TiVo, which the US industry doesn't and that's not fair is it?) - but, gosh darnit, it FEELS like you've found something before everyone else, regardless. For me, it's a little like that with the song Hallelujah. Sure, it's been around for years and it's been recorded by something like fifty people, probably on the edge of my radar forever and even used in a Shrek movie for heaven's sake... but hearing it used years ago in a particular stunning West Wing episode... I HEARD it. It resonated. It was immediately the kind of song you want to keep to just yourself for those moments when you need inspiration yet also immediately play to anyone and everyone who'll listen. Like all truly great songs it finds a way to punctuate your life like a particularly scathing comma.
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew a Hallelujah
While tying people to kitchen chairs is still morally dubious unless between consenting adults, the complete music and the lyrics just WORK. It's a song which has different versions, different lyrics and interpreted in many different ways. For me it's all quite simple. It's all about the power of love to both warm and burn, to empower and destroy. When sung 'right' it's the singer telling you that it once let him soar in almost holy, sacred way (count the biblical references) and then left him stripped of everything ('and love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah..').
Bob Dylan's version gave it a happy ending ( 'And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song.. with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.') However its original writer, Leonard Cohen returned to the extensive version he penned and gave it a more mournful send-off and that's what gives it's more true emotional power:
Maybe there's a God Above
But all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
Cynical, yes... but wonderfully telling. The Guardian's Laura Barton makes similar comments in Friday's edition of the UK paper (and does so more effectively in around 700 words than the Daily Mail manages in a garish double-page spread).
And why the Hallelujah topicality? It's not just the festive season. The interesting thing is that come next week the top THREE places of British music charts might all be occupied by that very song . There's little doubt that Hallelujah will be take the top spot. The question is: whose version? The X-Factor's latest winner Alexandra was the top favourite (being hyped as all of the show's winners are wont to be) but the late Jeff Buckley version has also been hurriedly re-released and the partly-bankrupted original Leonard Cohen may also have a version in the running. The top three places of the chart held by the same song? I'd kinda like that.
Years ago, my first real girlfriend loved Cohen's work but she never managed to persuade me to listen to any of his albums. Three decades on... C J Cregg, Jed Bartlett and - I suppose - even bloody Simon Cowell all contributed to my eventual conversion.
So, as this is the last of my blogs pre-departure on festive hols, here's a little hallelujah to life... may it always be a series of secret chords, minor falls and major lifts.
Happy Christmas, all...
You know when you discover something and it's just...yours? It's like that television show that only you are watching. (Well, of course, it's not JUST you - it's a you and a few million others and probably quite a few million more on that if you count those who use Sky+ and TiVo, which the US industry doesn't and that's not fair is it?) - but, gosh darnit, it FEELS like you've found something before everyone else, regardless. For me, it's a little like that with the song Hallelujah. Sure, it's been around for years and it's been recorded by something like fifty people, probably on the edge of my radar forever and even used in a Shrek movie for heaven's sake... but hearing it used years ago in a particular stunning West Wing episode... I HEARD it. It resonated. It was immediately the kind of song you want to keep to just yourself for those moments when you need inspiration yet also immediately play to anyone and everyone who'll listen. Like all truly great songs it finds a way to punctuate your life like a particularly scathing comma.
Ah, a Cohen convert. Shows you're a man of taste. My iTunes playlist has a long had heavy dose of the morose Canadian on it.
We're playing all 3 versions of it at work at the moment and was saying something very similar to colleagues the other day as we debated our favourite versions. I've loved those lyrics, and the melody, since Leonard Cohen et al crept into my soul during my university years and as a result am kind of possessive of that song along with a few others that have now become so popular with the masses. Makes me cry every time, which is a bit inconvenient when it's played just before a news bulletin....
Oh,dear. I was going to suggest that you show off that new beard and arrange a date for New Years Eve the minute you land in the US instead of waiting until the last minute. If you go looking for a woman in that frame of mind, though, God knows whom you'll find! Sing something more cheerful for a while first to get in the right spirit for finding someone wholesome!
Are we allowed to worry about you while you fly?
I intend to balance my state of mind by alternating Hallelujah with Mnuh-Mnuh by the Muppets.
All prayers and good wishes to keep the plane aloft while it needs to be and my head intact are always appreciated.
Happy X-mas all
John
- leaving his pod at Heathrow...