Bohemian Rhapsody. Good As Hell. Running Up That Hill. The history of pop music is peppered with songs that peaked upon re-release or slow-burned their way to the top of the charts.
None, however, can match the circuitous journey taken by Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, a song that Bono has called the most perfect in the world.
Inspired by music journalist Alan Light’s much-acclaimed book, The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of Hallelujah, a new documentary from filmmakers, Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, chronicles the song’s improbable journey from obscurity to busking standard.
I think, a seed was planted, at least subconsciously
For Geller and Goldfine, Hallelujah was the ideal prism through which to view Cohen as an artist and a man. Their film, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, includes an early biographical section, featuring archive footage and interviews with Clive Davis and Cohen’s rabbi, Mordecai Finley. The material coalesces into an origins story for lyrics that are: “One part biblical, one part the woman he slept with last night.”
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“To understand the song, you need to understand the person who came to the point where he could write that song,” says Geller. “We had to find a way to communicate to our audience that they needed to hang out for 15 minutes before we got to the song itself.”
“We are asking: why is Leonard Cohen the only person who could have written the song Hallelujah,” adds Goldfine. “And to answer that question, you need to understand the man and his spiritual journey.”
Even before Hallelujah began the “unlikely ascent” charted in the film Cohen made for an unlikely rock star. The Canadian poet and novelist was already 40 when Judy Collins, who had a hit with the Cohen-penned Suzanne, told him: “You can’t hide in the shadows any more; you have to sing in public.”
At that time, he could neither play guitar or sing. Still, by Collins’ recollection, once he got on stage: “Everybody went nuts.”
“He was such a gorgeous, unique poet,” says Dayna Goldfine. “And so his lyrics are like no one else’s. I mean, maybe Bob Dylan’s but, they’re not lyrics that are just tossed out there or that you’ve heard before in rock songs. There are performers who just can belt out a song or blast with a wall of speakers. He didn’t have a typical voice for music, but he had a voice that draws you in and he knew how to pair it with these beautiful women back up singers. That combination is so infectious.”
Geller and Goldfine first encountered Leonard Cohen when friends bought them tickets for a 2009 concert in Oakland. The gig was a part of a world tour undertaken by necessity following the discovery that Cohen’s manager Kelley Lynch had misappropriated $5 million from his retirement fund. Despite those circumstances, Goldfine characterised it as “the most significant concertgoing experience ever.”
“From that, I think, a seed was planted, at least subconsciously,” says Geller. “The trigger came years later, which was a random dinner table conversation with friends about movies and documentaries, and the idea of making a movie about a song. And suddenly we realised that we had an idea that had been sitting there parked since 2009.”
It wasn’t until 1998 — one year after Buckley’s death by drowning — that his cover version of Hallelujah made it to the top of the charts
In 1984, Columbia Records president Walter Yetnikoff summoned the artist into his office and said: “Look, Leonard, we know you’re great, but we don’t know if you’re any good.” Working with producer John Lissauer and backing vocalist Jennifer Warnes, Cohen had just turned in his seventh studio album, Various Positions. Columbia decided that the record, which featured Hallelujah, was commercially unviable. It was not released in the US.
“Yetnikoff didn’t just reject Hallelujah when he decided not to put out Various Positions,” says Goldfine. “The thing that’s remarkable is that he rejected a number of songs that became Leonard Cohen classics. He rejected Dance Me to the End of Love, He rejected If it Be Your Will. So it’s even more perplexing as to why he would have chosen to not put the album out in the US.”
Larry “Ratso” Sloman, a Rolling Stone contributor and regular Cohen interviewer, estimates that Cohen wrote between 150 and 180 verses of Hallelujah. These were translated and distilled by John Cale for the 1991 Leonard Cohen tribute album, I’m Your Fan, featuring contributions from REM, Pixies, Ian McCulloch, and Fatima Mansions. In the new film, Glen Hansard, who, as Goldfine notes, was bathed in the sink as a baby while his mother sang songs from Cohen’s Bird on the Wire, outlines the importance of Cale’s stripping Hallelujah down. It was Cale’s version which was recorded by Jeff Buckley for his 1994 album, Grace.
“It was Glen who told us about Jeff Buckley being a roadie for a little roadshow for the movie The Commitments,” says Geller. “And it was Glen who said to Jeff: ‘This club over here and I know you play.’ Because Jeff was already trying to earn a few extra bucks behind the counter. So he ended up playing for Shane Doyle at Sin-é. It’s just fabulous how that whole Irish clan in Manhattan connected the story.”
It wasn’t until 1998 — one year after Buckley’s death by drowning — that his cover version of Hallelujah made it to the top of the charts. From there, the song had its own momentum. A version by Rufus Wainwright, who recorded Hallelujah as a tribute to Buckley, was included on the album Shrek: Music from the Original Motion Picture. In the documentary, Shrek co-director Vicky Jenson talks about cutting Wainwright’s version from Shrek, in favour of Cale’s.
In 2004, kd lang recorded a version of Hallelujah on her album Hymns of the 49th Parallel and performed it at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Alexandra Burke, the winner of the fifth series of The X Factor, scored a Christmas number one in 2008, ushering in an era of warbled talent show covers.
“We talked to the busker that you see in our film outside a subway station in Manhattan,” says Goldfine. “And she told us that if she’s really having a hard time attracting an audience and she’s really not making any money, she starts playing Hallelujah. She says it works every time.”
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song opens on September 16th
