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The song tells you how it works while it is working. In the first verse of “Hallelujah,” Leonard Cohen sings about a secret chord King David played, and then he names the moves: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift. If you sit at a piano in C, those are the chords under the words. The song is describing itself as it goes.
That little trick is the key to the whole thing. “Hallelujah” is a song about making a song. More exactly, it is about what you have left to sing when the thing you were proud of has fallen apart. So what does Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” really mean? It is not a worship song, and it is not quite a love song. It is a song about a broken man who still has one word left.
The song almost nobody heard first
Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet and songwriter, recorded “Hallelujah” in 1984 for his album Various Positions. It did not start well. His American record label declined to release the album there at all. Cohen later recalled being told, in effect, that the label knew he was great but did not know if he was any good.
The song had cost him a lot. By the most common account, it took him about five years and dozens of drafts. Estimates of how many verses he wrote run from around 80 to well over 100. The 1984 record used four of them.
Most people do not meet that recording first. They meet a version that came through John Cale. In 1991 Cale covered the song for a Cohen tribute album, I’m Your Fan. He asked Cohen for the lyrics and got about fifteen faxed pages. Cale said he went through and picked out the “cheeky” verses. Jeff Buckley heard Cale’s spare piano version and built his own on it for his 1994 album Grace. Cale’s recording is the one in the film Shrek. After that, the song belonged to everyone: talent shows, funerals, weddings, memorial broadcasts.
So when people argue about what “Hallelujah” means, they are often arguing about different songs. They share a tune and a chorus, but not the same verses.
What the 1984 verses actually do
Read the four original verses in order and something happens that is easy to miss when you only hear the famous parts.
The first verse is about David. He is the baffled king, a musician who wrote songs for God. Cohen keeps him at arm’s length. He is a figure in a story.
The second verse turns to “you.” And it does something clever. It takes two different Bible men and folds them into one person. The rooftop where a woman is seen bathing belongs to David and Bathsheba. The cut hair and the stolen strength belong to Samson and Delilah. Cohen joins them into a single fall: a strong man, a desire he could not refuse, a throne broken and the power gone. The person listening is now standing inside both stories.
The third verse answers a charge. Someone says the singer has taken the name in vain. His reply is the heart of the song. He says it does not matter which kind of hallelujah you heard, the holy or the broken. Both count.
The fourth verse turns to “I.” The singer admits he did his best and it was not much. Things went wrong. And he will stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on his tongue but the one word.
Here is the pattern. The song walks from he to you to I. It starts with a king in an old story. It ends with the singer standing in the king’s place. By the last line, he is David: a man who wrote songs, failed badly, and has only praise left to offer. The song never says so. It just moves the camera until you notice who is standing where.
Cohen pushed it out of church on purpose
A common story says the covers “cleaned up” a religious song. That is not quite right. Cohen changed it himself. On his later tours he sang a mostly different set of verses. These were about a lover, a shared room, and a love that is cold and broken, not a victory parade. Those later verses are where much of Cale’s and Buckley’s versions come from.
Cohen explained why. He said he wanted to push the hallelujah deep into the secular world, into the ordinary world. He wanted to show that a hallelujah can come out of things that have nothing to do with religion. In another interview he said there are moments when we can embrace “the whole mess,” and that is what he meant by the word.
So the two main versions are not a sacred song and a dirty copy. They are one idea tried twice. The 1984 version finds a hallelujah in a ruined king. The later version finds one in a ruined love affair. Both refuse to save the word for good days. That is why the song works at a wedding and at a funeral, and why people who never pray still cry at it.
One thing does go missing, though. Jeff Buckley’s famous recording does not include the 1984 closing verse, the one where the singer stands before the Lord of Song. Many people know the song only that way. They hear the fall, but not where the singer ends up.
The king who wrote the broken hallelujah first
The word itself is older than any of this. In Hebrew, hallelujah is a call to a crowd: all of you, praise Yah. It comes mostly from the Psalms, the songbook that tradition ties to David.
And here the song meets something it already contains. Cohen opens with David, and his second verse lands on the rooftop and Bathsheba. In the Psalms there is a song with a heading that names that exact moment. Psalm 51 is titled as David’s psalm from the time the prophet Nathan came to him after Bathsheba. It is the song of a king who has broken everything. Near the end comes this line:
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalm 51:17, KJV)
That is Cohen’s “holy or the broken,” three thousand years early, with one sharp difference. Cohen says the broken hallelujah counts the same as the holy one. The psalm goes further: the broken one is what God was asking for all along. A failed king does not have to fix himself before he is allowed to sing. The singing starts in the wreckage.
Nobody needs to claim Cohen was writing a sermon. He was not, and he said as much. But he put David at the start of his song and a ruined man at the end. And the oldest songs about that king say the same thing his song says: what you have left, offered honestly, is enough to bring.
Hearing it again
Next time “Hallelujah” comes on, at a memorial or in a film or from a teenager with a guitar, listen for which verses you get. Listen for whether the song stays in the bedroom or makes it to the final verse. Either way, the chord still does what the lyric says. It falls, then lifts. Cohen built the whole song on that motion. It is a fair description of the people who keep singing it too.
If the Hebrew roots interest you, the Hebrew word for praise, halal, is the root under the word Cohen chose, and it is wilder than most people expect.
Over to you
Which version of “Hallelujah” is the real one for you: Cohen’s 1984 recording, his later live verses, Cale’s, Buckley’s, or one you heard somewhere unexpected? And does the song mean something different depending on which verses you get? Tell us in the comments.
Questions About Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
What is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen actually about?
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (1984) is about praise that comes out of failure. The original verses begin with King David as a songwriter, fold in the falls of David with Bathsheba and Samson with Delilah, and end with the singer admitting his best was not much while still offering the single word “hallelujah.” Cohen said a hallelujah can be holy or broken, and both have value.
Is Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah a religious song?
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” uses biblical figures, especially King David, but it is not a worship song. Cohen said he wanted to push the hallelujah into the secular, ordinary world, and his later live verses are about a love affair rather than the Bible. It is best understood as a song that finds praise in ordinary, messy life.
Why are there different lyrics to Hallelujah?
Leonard Cohen wrote dozens of verses for “Hallelujah” and recorded four on the 1984 album Various Positions. On later tours he sang a largely different set. John Cale built his 1991 cover from about fifteen pages of lyrics Cohen faxed him, and Jeff Buckley’s 1994 version grew from Cale’s. Each singer chose different verses, so versions of the song can tell quite different stories.
What does “the fourth, the fifth” mean in Hallelujah?
In Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” the line about the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift describes the song’s own chords. In the key of C, the music moves through the fourth chord, the fifth chord, a minor chord and back up, matching the words as they are sung. The song describes itself while it plays.
Which version of Hallelujah is in Shrek?
The film Shrek uses John Cale’s piano version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Rufus Wainwright’s similar version appears on the soundtrack album. Both follow Cale’s 1991 arrangement rather than Cohen’s original 1984 recording.
Social Share Posts
- Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah walks from “he” to “you” to “I.” It starts with King David and ends with the singer standing in David’s place. I had never noticed.
- The chords in Hallelujah do exactly what the lyric says: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift. The song describes itself while you hear it.
- Most people know Hallelujah through John Cale and Jeff Buckley, not Cohen’s 1984 record, and the verse where the singer finally ends up is the one Buckley leaves out.
