Hallelujah

My roommate and I are both rather drugged at the moment, and so I feel justified in changing up the perspective of my entry. As per the last five entries, I've been focused on specific artists and songs they recorded originally. Sitting at my computer at midnight editing my roommmate's speech, though, I realized that part of music education isn't looking at the way an artist can make you feel, but looking at the way a single song can portray a million different emotions. The song 'Hallelujah', originally written by Canadian folk artist Leonard Cohen (who, quite frankly, I'll probably introduce everyone to soon enough), has been covered by seven major artists and countless others. The words have the power to move you from sadness to indignance to a religious revelation. It's been featured in movies like Shrek, and played at places like my high school prom. Christians hear stories they've known since childhood, and everyone else hears snippets of familiarity to folk tales and memories. It's told in a storytelling fashion rather than as specific verses, with rhyming where it fits and free verse where it doesn't.


I heard there was a secret chord that David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this- the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.

Isn't that beautiful? I have yet to listen to it and not have it move me, whether to tears or to become productive and accomplished.

This artist, Jeff Buckley, sung arguably the most commonly known rendition of Hallelujah, recorded and released in 1994.