Comments on: Hallelujah – How not to Interpret a Song

By: Donna

Donna — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:26:35 +0000

I absolutely cannot stand Alexander Burke’s version of the song. What made it even worse was that it was played at office Christmas parties everywhere around Christmas time. The state of society is dire. I can’t believe that there are numpties out there who buy records like this, who play them as a form of entertainment. I hope they choke on their Christmas dinners this year if yet another X-Factor contestant gets to number one because of them departing with their hard earned!

By: admin

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:07:01 +0000

Thanks for commenting, James. You’re right, the B-vox on the Cohen version are Gospel, as are the chord changes. Cohen was deliberately using Gospel music to make a personal, rather than religious, confessional mood.

The gospel singing I specifically object to is the pop-with-a-gospel-tinge of singers like Beyonce and Aguilera – wobbling about and shouting rather than singing. It turns everything into a show and de-personalises the music. Gospel music itself is just about acceptable… well, except for the Christianity.

By: James

James — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:07:37 +0000

Wouldn’t you describe the backing vocals on the Leonard Cohen version you linked to as gospel?

You didn’t mention church bells in your list of crimes, which seem obligatory in most ‘Christmas’ songs (read: songs released just before Christmas as to stand a chance of becoming a Christmas #1). I don’t think there are any sleigh bells but they might be back in the mix and the YouTube version is rather over-compressed, so maybe I’m just not hearing them.

By: » Hate is Fun

» Hate is Fun — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:15:44 +0000

[...] Songwright » Blog Archive » Hallelujah – How not to Interpret a Song. [...]

By: Vickie Clarke

Vickie Clarke — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:53:58 +0000

You’re all right. I hate the soul sapping Simon Cowell machine. This was a terrible choice for the X – Factor winner, and thanks to Cowell it has been used very inaproppriately. I have never thought that this was a suitable song for a woman to sing, even with the sexual innuendo left out. It’s song to be sung be a frail male voice. Blake didn’t do it justice either in their pop opera style. Leave this song a folk song, and it works. I guess I’ll get students who will want to sing it in the wannabe Whitney style, but I will advise then to listen to Cohen or Buckley, then let them make up their minds.

By: John

John — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:12:13 +0000

I enjoy watching the X factor for what it is…a piece of Saturday night entertainment. I know what the criticisms are and I think that enhances the viewing in some way. After all that is what the Producers want not the panelists. Why so much fuss about Simon Cowell not to mention Louis Walsh. It pretty obvious that Simon and Louis (at one point, Sharon Osbourne) are in it to promote their own organisations and I guess that much of the music industry has some interest in the X factor. It does provide a vehicle especially in the auditon stages for those audtionees (who do not get a chance to appear on TV) as a way to get one step into the music industry. The big grip that I have is the sound itself. Either there is something wrong with my tv, but I can hardly hear the singing sometimes. The other is the noise of the audience. Do they actually hear the panel’s comments?

As fo the song, Hallelujah. what exactly is it about and whose version is right. I enjoyed listening to the tune and the words ‘Hallelujah. It took me a while to realise (and my kids had to inform me) that it was sung in Shrek but in what context I don’t know. Is it a Gospel song? Because of the sound ‘problems’ it was difficult to hear the lyrics. That was until, I read the lyrics on the internet and some of the latter lyrics are somewhat disturbing depending on which version you listen to.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:15:26 +0000

Thanks for the comment Mike. You’re absolutely right, all that matters is whether you like it or not, and there’s no need to account for taste.

I wouldn’t accept that the general public like it. Singles don’t sell enough to these days to be a measure of the general taste (if they ever did). The best we can say is that the sort of people who watch the X Factor like it, and obviously I’m not one of those people.

I’ve given reasons for why I think its a bad rendition of a good song, and yes I’ve exaggerated my stance for rhetorical purposes. But all my reasons for disliking it could of course be someone else’s reasons for liking it. While you find it pleasant, I find it thoroughly unpleasant. It’s as if someone has taken all the things about music that annoy me and tried to stuff them into one song.

Can I ask what it is specifically you like about the song?

By: Mike B

Mike B — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:23:28 +0000

Who really cares about analysing the song? The “general public” don’t. That includes my wife and two daughters who enjoy the song as-it-is without any reference to previous versions. I find it very pleasant to listen to, as a song, and it’s sung by quite an attractive lady. It’s selling in millions, so why are you “grumpy old men” tearing it to bits. In many “songs” the words are inaudible anyway, so the meaning and the feeling of the original words don’t really matter “that much”. As long as people enjoy it (and buy it) that’s all that really matters in the great realm of things.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:30:23 +0000

Oh I’m sure Burke had very little input – her only personal crime would be to have entered the TV talent show in the first place. We can blame whoever arranged it for how the song turned out.

You should hear what’s been done to the commercial end of music over here. It’s shameful – that insidious blandness is being replicated over and over again. Muzak rules the airwaves.

And yet there’s no rule anywhere that says music can’t be interesting and commercial. The two ideas needn’t be mutually exclusive, in fact its usually the original music that has the biggest commercial impact in the long run.

Why anyone would be happy with this is beyond me, except unfortunately it will sell a few copies.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:23:00 +0000

Oh, dear. She has quite a voice and can sing powerfully. But I have to agree that she has no sense (neither does the arranger) of the song itself.

I do think that we can blame the arranger on this as I have to doubt that she had any role in that, yeah? If they did, it’s stop time. It’s generally bad to let singers mess with the creative process. They tend to screw it up.

The key change. I don’t understand. And the crescendo is antithetical. None of it makes sense. I don’t see how anybody, having read the lyrics and having heard Buckley’s incredible cover–which I do think is brilliant, personally–could interpret this song as big or powerful. The lyrics are about the breaking down of some individual. David the king falling for Bath-Sheba, killing her husband, screwing himself over. Samson falling for Delilah, letting him cut his hair, take away his strength. It’s about how love and sex are the death of us. Not how we are WOMEN! And we should UNITE! We are WORTH SOMETHING! Nothing like that.

The British should know better.