“I did my best, it wasn’t much/ I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch/ I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you/ And even though it all went wrong/ I’ll stand before the Lord of Song/ With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah,” sang Cohen in his deep baritone.ĭespite the acclaim and critical praise for the album, when the single was first released, it did not find favour with Cohen’s recording label, Columbia. Its lyrics reference the Bible, in particular, the ill-fated love stories of Samson and Delilah from the Book of Judges and that of King David and Bathsheba.

Set to gospel music, Hallelujah brings together the sacred and the profane, speaking of love and betrayal, longing and sex. Cohen is known to have written over 80 drafts of Hallelujah over a period of five years. Many songs from Cohen’s vast repertoire, spanning a career that lasted over six decades, have achieved cult status over the years, but, arguably, his most iconic songs include Suzanne (1967, Songs of Leonard Cohen), Dance Me to the End of Love, and, Hallelujah. Hallelujah and its many covers and interpretations Click here to join our channel stay updated with the latest

He was speaking of Dance Me to the End of Love in particular but it holds true for many other songs from his repertoire, and, especially for Hallelujah. “…it’s curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that’s why the process is so mysterious about writing a song.” In an interview to CBC Radio in August, 1995, Cohen, who passed away at the age of 82, spoke of how language carries its own secret history, that changes with context and with time. Two singles from Cohen’s Various Positions would go on to have expansive lives of their own - Dance Me To the End of Love, a song inspired by the Holocaust, and, Hallelujah, which had a liturgical overtone. As critics noted, despite this new leaning towards country music forms, his songs continued to engage with the shadows underneath the light, and, with history, whose darkness had always had a special appeal for the musician. The change did not make his songs less “grim”, though. In 1984, when Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen released Various Positions, his seventh studio album, it would not only mark the musician’s return following a five-year hiatus after Recent Songs (1979), but also his inclination towards a more contemporary music making.

Leonard cohen hallelujah lyrics