Whose version of Hallelujah do you like best?

[8ball]

There is big fail right in the middle of that list.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I listened to it earlier and thought he was very drippy.

I think the Buckley version is kind of intimate, and that makes it sexy.

But yeah, Leonard Cohen's voice, gawd, I'd like him to read me bedtime stories.

 

[Geri]

I think the Buckley version is kind of intimate, and that makes it sexy.

Maybe if you like drippy men.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Maybe if you like drippy men.

Maybe I do...

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

There is big fail right in the middle of that list.

For that particular genre, I thought it was rather good. It's not low key, subtle folksy, so it can't really be compared to the others in that sense. But taking it at face value for what it is, I liked it.

 

[Laney]

I love Buckley's version... but if I could only listen to one ever ever again it would be my beloved Leonard's... hands down.

 

[kalidarkone]

I listened to it earlier and thought he was very drippy.

You're just unromantic An emotional man is not necessarily drippy.

 

[Funky_monks]

I'm so fucking sick of all the versions of it now.

The recent re-release has ruined them all for me.

 

[danny la rouge]

How many threads, new or old? And still full of people who are wrong.

 

[8ball]

How many threads, new or old? And still full of people who are wrong.

There is wrongness everywhere - we will never be free of it.

 

[Weller]

Sad Kermits version..

 

[killer b]

(6) John Cale - too folky/folksy and, erm, too 'forced' don't know how to describe it.

you probably need to hear it before you can describe it, tbf. folky? folksy? wtf?

cale's version is clearly the best - i'd probably go for cohen, but the production is a bit of an acquired taste... cale's version is timeless and wonderful, one of the greatest 'covers' ever.

 

[Pingu]

I am still holding out for a Marilyn manson version

 

[Funky_monks]

I'd have liked to have seen a Pogues version of it.

 

[MightyAphrodite]

(1) Jeff Buckley - somehow he managed to impose and to impart more meaning in the words than even the songwriter Cohen, weirdly as if he really believed it and it had happened to him and he'd been the one who'd written it. And again, maybe less melancholic than Cohen's delivery, but beautifully done.

Yup.

I'd have liked to have seen a Pogues version of it.

Ooooo me too. OOOoo.

 

[ymu]

(2)(I've actually seen two Cohen versions on YouTube now)

There are two versions.

But the fight between two Hallelujahs is fitting because the song has led a double life. Even Cohen released, in effect, a cover version. His 1984 original combines a conflation of the biblical stories of David, Delilah and Samson with a string of comically ingenious rhymes for the title word, including "overthrew yah" and "what's it to yah". Four years later, Cohen performed and published a different lyric, which becomes an end-of-love letter to a departed partner.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/19/comment-hallelujah-leonard-cohen

Looks like there are going to be 3 versions in the top 40 for Christmas - one of Cohen's originals is in there now (the later one, I think), courtesy of the downloaders protest vote.

 

[bluestreak]

I like Cohen's best. Like many people I came to the song via Buckley, and I still rate his version. I also like Wainwright's versin, but Cale's is one of the best. Amanda Palmer does it well, kd lang's was disappointing.

 

[Kaka Tim]

kd lang's version is excellent. a pretty faithful reading, but she's got the voice to really make it her own.

please tell me you are joking. She fucking murders it - over emoting, over blown pile of cack. Only whitney houston could do it worse. Or Tom Jones.

Cohens version is pretty dire as well - choirs? bad 80s keyboards? lennie - no!

its a beautiful song with rich, evocative lyrics, it doesn't need anything else to make it 'bigger' or louder or grandiose under the mistaken assumption that it will make the song more 'powerful'. It doesn't. Its all there in the song and it needs te be allowed to breathe not buried under a huge semi-orchestral score and 'feel my larynx' vocal gymnastics.

Someone like Nick Cave, Bobbie Gentry, Dusty Springfield or Jonny Cash would do it justice.

 

[cozmikbrew]

Happy Mondays

Damn! beat me to it

 

[Mrs Magpie]

The first time I ever heard that song, one of the girls at school was singing it. I just heard this pure clear voice coming from an otherwise empty classroom and it was so beautiful. Nothing else even comes close.

 

[isitme]

i think this thread is the most pretentious pile of wank ever

 

[Kaka Tim]

The first time I ever heard that song, one of the girls at school was singing it. I just heard this pure clear voice coming from an otherwise empty classroom and it was so beautiful. Nothing else even comes close.

We have a winner.

 

[Bakunin]

There are two versions.




Looks like there are going to be 3 versions in the top 40 for Christmas - one of Cohen's originals is in there now (the later one, I think), courtesy of the downloaders protest vote.

All three of which will be making Simon Cowell millions, or so I've heard.

 

[Geri]

All three of which will be making Simon Cowell millions, or so I've heard.

He'll make money from Alexandra's version, as it's on his label.

 

[Mallard]

It's probably heresy but Buckley's

 

[danny la rouge]

BTW: Thank you, whichever Mod did it. It was driving me mental, but I didn't want to say.

 

[mentalchik]

I like Jeff Buckley's the best too.......

 

[Mrs Magpie]

BTW: Thank you, whichever Mod did it. It was driving me mental, but I didn't want to say.

My pleasure. It was driving me mad too.

 

[izz]

kd land's version is excellent. a pretty faithful reading, but she's got the voice to really make it her own.

totally agree, gives me the music chills every time.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Hmm, looks like Jeff is winning the poll atm. And I always got the impression that liking his version of hallelujah was a u75 faux pas right up there with listening to the beatles...