“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 ya?
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 tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah“
Leonard Cohen worked on writing the song Hallelujah for 6 years and penned over 150 different verses. I chose to reflect on the few verses above. It was a song that Columbia Records turned away in the United States, but it eventually gathered momentum over the years after singers like Bob Dylan, John Cole and Jeff Buckley recorded and performed live their favorite verses all written by Cohen. It is both spiritual & secular as was Cohen. It cannot be denied in any language, country, religion or musical genre with whatever verses are applicable to the artist. It is brilliantly sparse and captivating. Leonard himself performed the song on a world tour at an elderly age.
The first time I heard Il Divo perform their rendition of the song “Hallelujah”, by Leonard Cohen, I was hooked on a new genre of music created by an opera quartet of men from 4 different countries. With a casting call sent out worldwide by Simon Cowell, a crossover genre was born called pop-opera. Music, poetry, photographs, and literature all have the power to deeply touch people. I have had those deep feelings, on many occasions, when I hear any recorded version or live production of Hallelujah. My favorite has always been the one by Il Divo. For me, it was the holy Hallelujah for 16 years.
Today it became the broken Hallelujah as I wept for the man that shared those 16 years and the appreciation of the group called Il Divo who we saw perform live on more than one occasion. A man I now have to keep locked away from harm, a man who regularly forgets who I am, a man who doesn’t remember what happened an hour ago, a man who refuses to eat for a variety of untrue conditions and a man who can no longer hear or feel the deep emotion of either a holy or a broken Hallelujah.
(My version of WordPress does not have the ability to embed the audio file for the specific recording I wanted to include with this post. I can share it by email if you want me to send it to you personally.)
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