It took five years. Five years of banging his head against the floor of a hotel room at the Royalton in New York, wearing nothing but his underwear, scrawling out verse after verse that would never see the light of day. Leonard Cohen didn't just sit down and write a masterpiece. He bled for it. He wrote about 80 draft verses for this one song. When people look for hallelujah by leonard cohen with lyrics, they usually expect a hymn. What they get is a messy, beautiful, slightly erotic, and deeply frustrated meditation on what it means to be human and broken.
It’s kind of a miracle we even have it.
When Cohen finally finished the song in 1984 for his album Various Positions, the head of Columbia Records, Walter Yetnikoff, looked him in the eye and told him it wasn't any good. He literally refused to release the album in the United States. "Leonard, we know you're great, but we don't know if you're any good," he famously said. Imagine that. One of the most covered songs in the history of modern music almost died in a filing cabinet because a record executive didn't "hear" a hit.
The Lyrics: What Is He Actually Talking About?
Most people hear the word "Hallelujah" and think of church. But Cohen’s version isn’t a Sunday morning worship session. It’s a "holy and a broken" hallelujah. It’s about the failure of a relationship, the loss of faith, and the visceral reality of desire.
I've 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, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Look at that first verse. He’s teaching you music theory while he sings it. When he says "the fourth, the fifth," the chord progression actually moves to the subdominant and dominant chords. When he says "the minor fall," the music drops into A minor. It’s brilliant. It’s meta. It’s Cohen showing off just a little bit before he dives into the gut-wrenching stuff.
The song references King David and Bathsheba, and Samson and Delilah. It’s all about powerful men being brought to their knees by beauty and their own weaknesses. "She tied you to a kitchen chair / She broke your throne, and she cut your hair." This isn't a song about religious victory. It's about surrender.
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The Different Versions of the "Truth"
Here is where it gets tricky for anyone searching for hallelujah by leonard cohen with lyrics. There isn't just one set.
When Cohen performed it live in later years, especially during his 1988 tour, he swapped out the biblical verses for much darker, more secular ones. He moved the song from the temple to the bedroom.
- The 1984 Studio Version: More religious imagery, slightly more "synthy" 80s production.
- The 1988 Live Version: Much grittier. This is the version that John Cale (of the Velvet Underground) liked.
- The John Cale/Jeff Buckley Version: This is the one most of us know. Cale asked Cohen to fax him the lyrics, and Cohen sent fifteen pages of verses. Cale picked the ones he liked, threw out the religious stuff, and kept the "cheeky" and "sensual" bits. Jeff Buckley then covered Cale’s arrangement, and that’s the version that turned the song into a global phenomenon.
Why Jeff Buckley Changed Everything
Buckley’s version is often cited as the "definitive" one, which is funny because it’s a cover of a cover. Buckley recorded it for his 1994 album Grace. He brought a fragile, angelic vulnerability to it that Cohen—with his gravelly, "bottom of a whiskey bottle" baritone—simply didn't have.
Buckley described his take as a "hallelujah to the orgasm." He saw it as a tribute to the energy of sexual release. That’s a far cry from what you might hear a choir singing at a wedding, but that’s the beauty of the track. It’s a vessel. You can pour whatever emotion you’re feeling into it, and it holds it.
Honestly, without Buckley, we might not be talking about this song today. His tragic death by drowning in 1997 solidified the song’s status as a modern requiem. It became the go-to track for every sad moment in TV and film. Shrek, The West Wing, The O.C.—it’s been used so much that it almost became a cliché. Almost.
The Technical Brilliance of the Composition
Musicologists love this song for a reason. It’s written in 12/8 time, which gives it that rolling, gospel-waltz feel. It feels like a heartbeat.
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The structure is a classic "verse-chorus" setup, but the chorus is just one word repeated four times. It’s hypnotic. By the time you get to the end of the song, that "Hallelujah" doesn’t feel like a celebration anymore. It feels like a sigh of relief or a cry for help.
Alan Light wrote an entire book about this called The Holy or the Broken. He points out that the song’s endurance comes from its ambiguity. Is it a song of praise? Or a song of defeat? Cohen himself said, "This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can... reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by 'Hallelujah.'"
Common Misconceptions About the Lyrics
A lot of people think this is a Christmas song. It really isn't. Just because it mentions David and the Lord doesn't mean it belongs next to "Silent Night."
Another big one: people think it’s a happy song. If you read the full hallelujah by leonard cohen with lyrics, you'll see lines like:
"And it's not a cry that you hear at night / It's not somebody who's seen the light / It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."
That is bleak. It’s about the moment when everything has gone wrong, you’ve lost the person you love, you’ve lost your pride, and all you have left is this one word to throw at the universe.
The Impact and the "Overexposure"
By the mid-2000s, there were hundreds of covers. Rufus Wainwright, k.d. lang, Bon Jovi, Pentatonix, Susan Boyle. It got so big that Leonard Cohen actually asked people to stop singing it for a while.
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In a 2009 interview with The Guardian, he said, "I think it's a good song, but I think too many people are singing it." He was joking, mostly, but you can see his point. When a song becomes a staple of American Idol and The X Factor, it risks losing its soul.
But it didn't.
When Cohen passed away in 2016, just days after Donald Trump was elected, Kate McKinnon opened Saturday Night Live by playing the song as her Hillary Clinton character. It wasn't funny. It was a moment of national mourning. It proved that despite the covers, despite the "Shrek" memes, the song still had the power to stop people in their tracks.
How to Truly Appreciate the Song Today
If you really want to understand the genius of Leonard Cohen, don't just listen to the Pentatonix version.
- Listen to the original Various Positions version first. It’s weird. It has these cheesy 80s synths and a deep, rhythmic pulse. It’s Cohen’s original vision.
- Read the "Lost Verses." Look for the versions where he talks about "the ghost of shame" and "the victory march." It adds a layer of cynicism that makes the hope in the chorus feel more earned.
- Watch the k.d. lang performance. Even Cohen said her version (at the 2010 Olympics) was perhaps the ultimate realization of the song.
Final Practical Takeaways
If you’re a musician looking to cover this, or just a fan wanting to understand it, keep these things in mind:
- Respect the silence: The space between the notes matters more than the notes themselves. Jeff Buckley understood this perfectly.
- Don't over-sing it: It’s not a vocal gymnastics exercise. It’s a poem. If you lose the lyrics, you lose the song.
- Choose your verses wisely: If you're playing at a wedding, maybe skip the part about being tied to a kitchen chair. If you're playing at a funeral, focus on the "holy and the broken" aspect.
- Study the 12/8 time signature: If you don't get the "swing" right, it just sounds like a boring ballad.
Leonard Cohen spent years agonizing over these words. He didn't want it to be perfect; he wanted it to be true. Whether you’re looking for the hallelujah by leonard cohen with lyrics to sing along or to analyze the poetry, remember that it’s supposed to hurt a little bit. That’s how the light gets in.
Next Steps for Music Lovers:
To dive deeper into Leonard Cohen's catalog, start with his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen. Pay close attention to "Suzanne" and "Famous Blue Raincoat." These tracks provide the essential context for the spiritual and carnal themes he would later perfect in "Hallelujah." If you want to see the evolution of his live performance, seek out the Live in London (2009) DVD, which captures the song's power in his later years.