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HALLELUJAH, indeed - the British singles chart still has the capacity to amaze. It is now a near certainty that Hallelujah - the elliptical, biblical anthem written by Leonard Cohen in 1984, "on the carpet in my underwear, banging my head on the floor" - will be our official Christmas number one come Sunday. And, it looks increasingly likely, our Christmas number two as well.
We have Simon Cowell to thank for this strange turn of events. It was he who chose the song as the vehicle for the victor of his X Factor - in the event, the full-throated Alexandra Burke, whose cover is odds-on favourite to reach the top spot, a feat managed by the last three X Factor winners. But Hallelujah has struck a chord in a way that, say, Shayne Ward's That's My Goal did not. Like John Lennon's Imagine, it has become a secular hymn, its ambiguous, devotional chorus sounding strangely appropriate at the festive end of a bleak year. It's practically a carol - but then few carols take time to wonder whether there really is a god above.
It inspires strong feelings. There are many who find it preposterously overblown and its rhymes contrived - Cohen has admitted to employing a rhyming dictionary. Then there are those old devotees who find themselves squeamish in the face of its new-found popularity. In a still-stranger development, the late Jeff Buckley's cover of the song from his 1994 album, Grace, is Burke's nearest challenger for the top spot. His sensitive fans are rushing to download his version to thwart Cowell, and William Hill has slashed the odds to 11/8 for Buckley to be second in the Christmas chart. Meanwhile Cohen's original, from his 1985 album Various Positions, is teetering on the edges of the Top 40.
At the very least it's a touching reward for the 74-year-old Canadian singer, who undertook his first tour in more than a decade this year to boost his retirement fund after he was cleaned out by a former manager. Now, as a Christmas bonus, he has an estimated £250,000 in royalties.
But whatever you think of Cowell or Cohen, Burke or Buckley, you must admit that Hallelujah is a weightier candidate for posterity than, say, Can We Fix It? (Yes We Can) by Bob the Builder. In fact, it says about as much as can be said in a pop song, an agnostic hymn that has cut across age, class and genre to become an anthem for a troubled age. Even JLS, the laughable boy band who lost out to Burke in the X Factor final, couldn't ruin it entirely, their lead singer, Aston Merrygold, claiming that singing it was the best feeling he's had in his life and, as he so often did, bursting into tears.
For a long-time devotee of the song - rather embarrassingly, I once quoted Hallelujah in a card designed to win back an estranged girlfriend - there is still something incongruous in hearing Alexandra's version blaring out of 4x4s this week. One acquaintance complained about "chavs singing it on the bus" - but actually, I think it's a pretty wonderful thing that a song long treasured by a very few should now touch so many.
And make no mistake, Hallelujah has cornered every market segment. Katherine Jenkins, the classical crossover artist, does a version on her latest album, Sacred Arias, a product aimed at sentimental mothers. The under-10s already have their own Hallelujah, as the song was featured in the movie Shrek, sung by John Cale (Rufus Wainwright's version features on the CD soundtrack).
It owes much of its popularity among teenagers to the American drama The OC, where Hallelujah is often used to indicate that a scene is especially moving. It lends further credibility to European arthouse movies too, such as at the climax of the German movie, The Edukators, while singers as diverse as kd lang, Bob Dylan and Bon Jovi have tried to impart meaning to its lyrics about baffled kings and holy doves.
What draws them to it? On a musical level, it is highly adaptable - working as jazz standard or folk song, convincing even as the gospel-tinged power ballad that Burke has recorded. Its simple refrain, with that chilling minor chord (its greatest hook), speaks to a desire for communal singing that strikes even atheists at carol concerts at this time of year. Cohen is often seen as a fine lyricist and little more, but the elegance of his melodies is cruelly overlooked; "It's got a great chorus" is how Cohen explains its appeal.
But it is undeniably the words which are the most remarkable aspect. They took Cohen five years to write, so they ought to be. The opening lines, "Well I heard there was a secret chord/That David played and it pleased the Lord", refer to the Old Testament story of King David. We understand that the divine music he discovered is the very song we are listening to, as Cohen describes the song's chord progression ("Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth "). But the woman he is addressing doesn't care for music, apparently more interested in some game of sexual humiliation - tying you to the kitchen chair, breaking your throne and cutting your hair.
So, as he goes on to evoke a doomed affair, Cohen plays off the divine against the erotic. The religious and the sexual fight against each other in various positions, the bloody battle implying that it's only in music that resolution can be found between the two.
Do the so-called chavs on the bus worry about this? It doesn't matter - for the secret of good lyrics is less that they hang together under analysis and more that they convey a certain feeling. In Hallelujah's case it is a desire for transcendence, and despite the song's moral complexity, this is so eloquently expressed that it can be felt by anyone.
Meantime, we have a Christmas fairytale: a heartwarming triumph for Burke, a happy-ever-after for Cohen, even possible redemption for Cowell, now that he has a riposte to the claim "You don't really care for music, do ya?"
That estranged girlfriend, by the way, is now my wife, so perhaps there was something in it after all.
Reader views (6)
Why no mention of Morten Harket and Espen Lind's cover of Hallelujah? Their live version, sung in 1996 and featured on Youtube, is as beautiful as KD Lang's and Jeff Buckley's versions, and just as haunting.
- Debbie, Edinburgh, Scotland, 22/12/2008 01:09
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Brilliant, I first heard this beautiful song , sung by KD LANG, and loved it there and then. ALEX;S version is very good and comparable to KD LANG; who i think is hard to beat.
Stay number one for ages...
- Susan Edwards, bolton uk, 21/12/2008 15:21
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i love Alexandra Burke- she is amazing at singing and really cool!
- Unknnown, london, 20/12/2008 13:30
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I discovered Jeff Bucleys Hallelujah some months ago, and it quickly became one of my favourite poignant anthems of all time. As with all covers, when you first hear them you can't help but wonder if they will do the original justice, and from first hearing the extremely talented Alexandra sing it on last weeks X Factor final, to playing the two versions concurrently, loud and proud on our pride of place ipod, I can find, unusually for me (being the critique I am), no preference between the two. They each fit in their own niche, and I agree with Mr. Godwin, for once, at last, we have an X Factor single that actually touches a chord. Well done Mr. Cowell and the producers of what has effectively become the guarantee of the Xmas no.1 from mid year.
John S - Grimsby
- John Stobart, Grimsby, UK, 19/12/2008 14:30
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Shayne Ward certainly touched my chord !! was the only origianl song written for an x factor winner and by far and away the best ! Bored already with Alex, sorry !
- Carri, uk, 19/12/2008 14:29
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If I want to hear 'Hallelujah' being blasted out by a woman's voice this Christmas, I'll buy the mother-in-law a karaoke machine...Perhaps, in time, she'll become as good a karaoke singer as Alexandra.
- Jock, London, 19/12/2008 12:21
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