Hallelujah Poll, poll Halleluja....

Leonard Cohen

This poll was my idea and I didn't want so many options. Thanks mate.

dear..

1.Jeff Buckley
2.Leonard Cohen
3.John Cale
4.KD Lang
5.Gord Downie
6.Daisy Chapman
7.Espen Lind, Askil Holm, Alejandro Fuentes, Kurt Nilsen
8.Rufus Wainwright
9.Nora Foss al Jabri
10.Regina Spector
11.Bob Dylan
12.Willie Nelson (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals)
13.Alexandra Burke
14.Imogen Heap
15.Katherine Jenkins
16.Anthony Michael Hall
17.Kathryn Williams
18.Allison Crowe
19.Happy Mondays
20.Diana Vickers
21.Fall Out Boy
22.Bono
23.Blake
24.Il Divo
25.Barrel House Mamas
26.Patricia O’Callaghan
27.Bon Jovi
28.Christina Marie
29.Dresden Dolls
30.Damien Rice
31.Sheryl Crow
32.The Junebugs
33.Tony Lucca
34.Elisa
35.Chris Botti
36.Clare Bowditch (Australian)
37.Eric Beverly
38.Erik Flaa
39.Euan Morton and Denise Summers
40.Arooj Aftab
41.Gavin de Graw
42.Jack Lukeman
43.John Jerome
44.Kate Noson
45.K’s Choice
46.Late Tuesday
47.Lucky Jim
48.Macbrolan
49.Ari Hest
50.Tim Minchin

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

36.Clare Bowditch (Australian)

50.Tim Minchin

Which Tim Minchin is it, then?

ha, bon jovi has really covered this song? eep.
Cale's is the best version.

Cale.

It is kind of fucked up but this song just makes me think of Shrek now.

hm, a good reason to never see shrek. i know this song has become overexposed in the last decade or so, but I've fortunately managed to avoid hearing a lot of these versions. it is still a pretty fucking monumental piece of songwriting to me.

Rufus Wainwright

ctrl-f "justin timberlake" = no results

50.Tim Minchin

Which Tim Minchin is it, then?

― i'm assuming that it's tity boi, host of the mixtape (sic), Saturday, December 4, 2010 3:39 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Tim Minchin, presumably the "ginger-haired piano playing comedian"

1.Jeff Buckley
2.Leonard Cohen
3.John Cale
4.KD Lang
8.Rufus Wainwright

These are the only ones I've heard. I think the first one I heard was Buckley's and I really liked it at the time, but I didn't know it was a Cohen song even though I was listening to a lot of Cohen at the time too. Now the only one I really like is Cohen's original.

Cohen's, in part for Jennifer Warnes.

somehow have only heard Cohen and Buckley. and I hear Buckleys first, as an emo teen, and didn't know it was a cover until years later. so

can

cale

cake

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guL4KgkheoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSJbYWPEaxw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dC-Ccb8wxU

Satanic backwards exorcist version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZWGo_aJ2iE&feature=related

Tim Minchin, presumably the "ginger-haired piano playing comedian"

He's Australian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZYs9vaMlPw

This song has turned into Amazing Grace, and I mean that in a very bad way. Abbott is right about Shrek being the culprit.

My most hated song.

Maybe you can blame Shrek for (re)popularizing this tune, but the actual scene in Shrek where it's used is very well done and touching.

When the scene started, at first I was like "omg, they're using that old Leonard Cohen song in a scene where a green ogre is heartbroken because of a princess", but in the end I was basically in tears.

I heard there was a secret poll
That Mark G made to please a troll

i like Cale's voice but not singing this song, just doesn't work for me. don't hate Bono but his version may be the worst. Fall Out Boy don't really cover this song, they have a song called "Hum Hallelujah" that references it and interpolates the chorus for a few bars is all.

lol lol eazy

4.KD Lang 1

Seriously underrated imo

I heard there was a secret poll
That Mark G made to please a troll

Yet bees can sometimes look like they won't sting you

Shit happens like this and when you see
yet even more versions, the fourth the fifth
it baffles you and you scream "NO MORE HALLELUJAH!!!!"

fall out boy

xpost doesn't rhyme and the syllables are all wrong. Still, it works as a rap.

The syllables work if you approach them like a Bob Dylan, a Bruce Springsteen, a Paul Simon or a Joni Mitchell. :)

OK, still doesn't rhyme.

and there's something going on here
but you don't really care for music,
do you, Mr Geir?

This song has turned into Amazing Grace, and I mean that in a very bad way. Abbott is right about Shrek being the culprit.

― Chaka Mo Khanlier (kkvgz), Sunday, December 5, 2010 7:03 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Or maybe even "I Got You Babe".

and there's something going on here
but you don't really care for music,
do you, Mr Geir?

I heard there was a secret poll
That Mark G made to please a troll

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Sunday, December 5, 2010 10:34 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

lol

Do any of the cover versions use the lyrics of the original Cohen studio version? The last verse about standing before the lord of song has always been the most powerful of the verses for me, but it seems like every cover version I've heard springs from Cale's cover which used alternate lyrics that Cohen provided him.

OH: "That's not a love song, it's a song they play on telethons when lots of people have died..."

!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItXygU9SJCA

I wish Cohen recorded a simple guitar or piano arrangement of this, with him singing. His phrasing is better than the cover artists (because he wrote it) but the production feels dated.

There is no perfect recording of this song, is what I’m saying. It remains pure potential, a shadow on a wall, an Orphic ceremony on the side of an urn.

This song has turned into Amazing Grace, and I mean that in a very bad way. Abbott is right about Shrek being the culprit.

― Chaka Mo Khanlier (kkvgz), Sunday, December 5, 2010 7:03 AM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is sort of true but I think the greatness of the song allows it to transcend the people who misunderstand the nuances of it. The real sentiment of the song has nothing to do with the shlocky uses it’s put to.

Cohen's live versions get around the production of the original.

I think it's become a ceremonial standard in part because, unlike Amazing Grace et. al., it sounds religious but isn't religious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3XRVJDfjnQ