It is a love song for love that has died, misappropriated love, and lost innocence that can’t be restored, and yet, beside the grief, there is still an active choice, to declare “hallelujah,” again, and again, and again. From Adam to “Song of Solomon” to Jesus and his bride, the Church, the discussion and depiction of sex is intertwined with an understanding of not only mortal relationships but also divine.Īt its core, “Hallelujah” is a song about the depth of our longing for love and our understanding of its inherent goodness, despite the symptoms of our brokenness that often accompany our pursuit of it. There is so much meaning in this verse, and you can interpret it however you want, but you can’t deny that this scene is given tender and respectful treatment by Buckley. The third verse delves into loneliness, and how messy love is (“Love is not a victory march/It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”) and the uncertainty of human fickleness that is outstripped by the glory of relationships that are worthy of a “hallelujah.” The fourth verse (which Olasky seems to have a problem with because it refers to orgasms) describes a relationship gone cold the lover who is left behind reminisces about the intense intimacy that sex offers, likening the consummation of their past love to the holy dove.
With these biblical stories in place, the rest of the verses follow suit in reference to the singer’s experience, and Jeff Buckley executes each verse perfectly. This is where Buckley shines-in drawing out the nuance of these two stories and establishing a tone for the rest of a song in which “hallelujah” is used not sarcastically but as an emotionally charged exploration of what it is to be human, to fail, and to still be able to see the goodness of love. They both accomplished incredible things despite their faults, because that is what it means to be human. Even though David and Samson both fell and fell hard, they were not beyond the redemptive mercy of grace and forgiveness. With each declaration of “hallelujah” Buckley expresses the misplaced love, the fall, the shame, the regret, and even the hope in grace that comes from God himself. The second verse beautifully captures the falls of David and Samson, with broken crowns and cut hair, Bathsheba and Delilah drawing from lips “hallelujah.” “Hallelujah” is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon God, and it appears at the end of each verse in this song, repeated with nuanced subtlety and fragility, defeat and ecstasy. Cohen’s lyrics are about fallen and sinful perversions of love. Jeff Buckley took Leonard Cohen’s song, with its problematic, tongue-in-cheek, cheeseball gospel choir mockingly singing “Hallelujah,” and interpreted the music and the lyrics into a beautiful reflection on brokenness, imperfect love, and most importantly, grace. Olasky doesn’t try to answer the questions “Why is this song so popular? And why can’t I reconcile it with my faith?” with anything other than giving credit to “partly the tune.” Reading over Olasky’s piece several times I could come to no other conclusion than that the deadline was tight, he had just read the kindle preview of The Holy or the Broken?by Alan Light and then decided that instead of listening to the song, meditating on it, and coming up with a thoughtful reflection, it would be better to declare it heretical and fix it or, in his words,“take it captive,” by slapping a ichthus sticker on its lyrics.
In a recent article/op-ed, Marvin Olasky provides some reflections on “Hallelujah.” After admitting that the melody is beautiful, that the song is popular, he gives a cursory analysis of the lyrics, declaring the song unfit for Christian consumption and debuts some “improved lyrics.” (Following the smashing success of his “Gr8 is Thy Faithfullnss x Doxology vs. Jeff Buckley took Leonard Cohen’s song and made it into the transcendent, over-covered, misinterpreted both by listeners and performers, incredibly famous song that it is today.
Were it not for the fact that Buckley was covering Cohen, one might argue that they are two entirely different songs.
However, to call the song “Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah'” is to omit a very important part of the song’s ever-increasing history: Leonard Cohen didn’t make the song famous, Jeff Buckley did. Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” resides in that pantheon of great songs that have been sung, interpreted, chopped, parodied (intentionally and unintentionally), and beaten to death, ranking so high on the scoreboard of abused songs that I suspect only “Amazing Grace” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” are above it.
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