Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah Meaning
Song Released: 1984
Covered By: Rufus Wainwright (2007), Jordan Smith (2015), Pentatonix (2016)
Hallelujah Lyrics
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This is a complex song, all the more marvelous for its many layers of meaning. There is a deliberate juxtaposition of the religious and the sexual, which I believe is an intentional blurring of a beloved (woman) for what is often referred to as The Beloved (God). This is fairly common is Indian ragas, for example, where the feeling of desire for a mate is not seen as any different as devotion to God, but part of the same spectrum of feeling. When he refers to love as "a broken hallelujah", it puts me in mind of Jesus saying, as he was dying on the cross, "O Lord, why have you forsaken me?"
If you truly believe that God is Love, then the most God-like activity most people ever participate in, is reproduction, whereby "our words are made flesh". The power that drives us to do what alone creates life, cannot be denied.
But like David, or Sampson, our heart's desire betrays us, and we are left with the fact of our own inpossible to escape isolation. David, like Leonard Cohen, was a songwriter, his Psalms were designed to be sung. What was the secret chord? Why did she fall in love with me? We are baffled.
I read somewhere that the price of love for the soul with the capacity for a great love, was eternal pain for bestowing upon a mortal what belongs alone to God. Anyone who has ever loved someone else with all their heart and soul can understand this.
In short, the song is about communion, or the lack of it, in all the different senses of the word. -
This song completely undid me and transported me to places I was unprepared to go.I found myself listening to it over and over and every possible artist and rendition I could find on you tube in my office surrounded by books on theology and biblical interpretation and this is where it has brought me. You cannot deny Cohen's references to David and Bathsheba and Sampson and Delilah. Why? Because of the obvious. It could have been any number of Old Testament characters who loved God, were chosen by God to accomplish something monumental but failed because of their human condition. We always succumb to our human frailties. There was only One who did not and by the way He was a descendant of David and Bathsheba so their sin was ultimately reconciled by the birth of the sinless One who reconciled all of our sin. But back to the story/song...David was a musician beyond compare and used music to interpret everything he felt..joy, sorrow, disappointment,longing, fear, grief,etc. just read the Psalms...he wrote them! And as far as the sexual implications of the lyrics? Why not? God created us as sexual beings (read the very erotic Song of Solomon). He made us in His image and shaped us in a way that we could express love in a very physical way....it was intentional! Love and lust are powerful and must not be confused or it will and does lead to destruction. Love equals creation. Lust equals destruction. Just ask Sampson. However God can and does take the most absolutely destructive acts of mankind and create life and beauty out of them. Don't believe me? Read the Old Testament, it happens over and over again. There is nothing you can do that God cannot recreate into life-giving beauty. For instance David and Bathsheba's first son who was born of their lustful union died. But out of their love was born Solomon...remember him...King Solomon? The wise and wealthy king. And that line eventually led to the birth of Jesus. Anyway a couple of ideas on some specific lines, "Your faith was strong but you needed proof" I believe this refers to God's testing of his chosen ones. He tested Adam and Eve and Abraham and Moses and Job and David and You and Me and many many more and not every one stays strong... Adam and Eve didn't, Hallelujah or we wouldn't be here, Abraham did, Hallelujah or we wouldn't be here. Moses choked but God continued to bless His people anyway...do you see a pattern here? I think the kitchen chair is just a metaphor for "the test" will we be bound by our earthly desires or will we choose true Love over lust."You say I took the name in vain,I don't even know the name", Ancient Jews did not, could not utter the Name of God, it was considered too sacred to pass their lips, they would breath in and out the Spirit in their prayers and it became a kind of name Ya ah weh, Yahweh, so "really what's it to you?" "It doesn't matter which you heard" cause it's my prayer my Hallelujuh. And in the end it doesn't matter because... "and even though, it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
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I think that most people are missing the true meaning behind the song by trying to read a "biblical" interpretation into the song. Cohen obviously uses biblical references in the song about King David and Sampson "cut your hair" but the meaning behind the song (to me) is the lengths that people will go to to love and be loved. Men and women will turn their backs on friends, beliefs; give up their families to commit affairs; and many times, know exactly what they are doing but continue to do it anyway ie -"baby i've been here before, i've seen this room and i've walked this floor". In the end love is what we make it - literally. For many people love is not a pleasant thing but for those that it is.. You should rejoice.. Hallelujah!!
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This is just a brief comment on Jolang's request for help in understanding these lines:
well baby I've been here before
i've seen this room, and I've walked this floor,
i used to live alone before I knew you
Cohen is saying that life with his lover has now become as sterile and lonely as it was before he met her, when he lived alone. -
I am a hetero woman, and disappointed at the bitterness expressed by some men on this site. The most meaningful part of the song for me is "Remember when I moved in you, and the holy dove was moving, too, and every breath we drew was hallelujah." This kind of spiritual sensual bonding can only be experienced when both partners are deeply and actively engaged emotional and physically. This is when sex becomes an expression of the soul.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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I was so moved by this song, that I couldn't get it out of my head for three days straight!
I agree with some of the other interpreters that LC used David as a model to explain love in many forms.
Firstly, I think David had a strong love for God and then when he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof, he was filled with sexual desire and he inwardly knew she would be his "undoing" in a sense. He would be "tied to the kitchen chair" and his throne (or power) would be subdued by this woman. (the cutting of his hair).
A man's hair in biblical times was a symbol of his strength to go into battle and thus, LC uses Samson here as a metaphor to say that this man has been subdued by a woman's power and it has caused him personal ruin and also to lose his standing in his relationship to God.
David realizes this and then sings the Hallelujah as a way of offering a sad and mournful praise to God.
He realizes he has gained something, Bathsheba, but he has also lost something more powerful and that is his relationship to God, whom he loved more.
I think LC may also be talking about social injustice in the verse where he says that love is not a "victory march" but a cold and broken hallelujah.
The Civil Rights movement is what came to mind when I heard this. Love is not just a march, but a long and sad struggle sometimes to even attempt to be heard or seen or felt.
Many can feel this in whatever state they are in, be it racial, sexual orientation or just another form of prejudice from society at large.
There is so much more to this song, that I can't even begin to do justice to, this is just a smattering on the full meaning of this wonderful and beautiful song. -
First, I think it is a beautiful song. Cohen's version is probably the best but I believe he has about 80 or so versions of the song. Kinda like Dylan, a song is a living thing and is never truly finished.
Buckley's cover is probably the best known but I believe he omits a couple of important verses. Dylan's cover (from years back) is interesting, to say the least. I think the Jewish background of Dylan and Cohen gave something to the song.
I doubt there is anything "New Testament" about the song. I actually don't think it is a particularly "religious" song in the usual interpretation.
Of course, I believe the first verse is about David as the psalmist, writing for Saul - who really didn't care or know about music. I love the it goes like this part of it simply because it sets out the chord progression.
Second verse, again about David and Bathsheba (ever wonder if that was really her name?) It the first three lines read almost directly from the story in the Bible. I never really see a reference to Sampson and Delilah but I can see how that could be seen by many. I still think it is referring to David, the death of the child, his almost house imprisonment and so on. One version, not sure whose, states "And from your lips she RIPPED the halleljua" which makes more sense to me, meaning the desire to praise was gone.
Third verse.....Depending upon versions (there are an awful lot of covers) but pretty much what it says. Most of us have walked the path of love and have been hurt. We sometimes, often times dread or fear walking it again. When if fails, which it too often does, Love really isn't a victory march.
Fourth verse, I sense the return to more religous symbolism I tend to see a communication between the main character - probably David - and God being broken. I think God is singing this verse. And when all was good, it truly was every breath was halleluja.
Fifth verse. I said what I said. You can agree or disagree. I don't really care. The main thing is that anything said can be misinterpreted. In Love or in a religious context. Think, in Love, how many arguments do couples get into because one hears something different than the other meant to say?
Sixth verse. I think my favorite. All have fallen short. We do our best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But, regardless, we will each answer for our actions. Again, in either the context of love or the context of religion.
Add Buckley's final verse and it becomes more cynical. Regardless of the existence of a god or of God, the singer only learns that Love can hurt. Deeply.
Finally, a Christian artist, Lincoln Brewster covers the song, changing the words, taking a certain level of literary license. He turns it into a purely religious, either Old Testament or New Testament song. Only two verses but then some of the best, pretty heavy guitar riffs than in any other version. In fact, this has the best "music" of any cover/version I have heard.
I think, if you took Brewster's version, added verses (from Cohen's most heard) two, four, five, six and then finished with Brewster's verse two, it would be a perfect song to sing in a fundamental, evangelical churh......because it would most certainly have them scratching their heads and thinking, "What in the world was that song about?"
Still, for whatever it is worth and regardless of the endless attempts at interpretations, it is an absolutely beautiful song. Haunting. Spellbinding. Mystifying. One of those that you never, ever, really figure out. Like Dylan and Cohen both state about music, it means different things at different times to different people.
And therein lies the beauty..................
John -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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"Broken Hallelujah"
First, let's look at the lyrics in the verses which rhyme with "Hallelujah."
(1) ...But you don't really care for music, do you
...The broken king composing Hallelujah
(2) ...Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
...And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
(3) ...I used to live alone before I knew you
...It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
(4) ...But now you never show it to me, do you?
...And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
(5) ...But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
...The holy or the broken Hallelujah
(6) Comments on verse six will follow.
None of these rhymes strain. They almost spell out the song's meaning on their own. They are equally as clever as the chord progression in the first verse ("the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift") mirrored in the music. From the beginning, we realize that this is a complex and serious composition.
Who are the characters in this story?
The narrator, who heard there was a secret chord, wonders whether "you" care for music. This "You" rhymes with every "Hallelujah." The narrator describes you upon seeing "her" on the roof in the moonlight. Bondage and shaving ensues.
Is it about David and Bathsheba? Sampson and Delilah? David and Jonathan? And what's up with the dove? Is it about faith, or lack of faith? Does it matter if it is the sincere hallelujah of prayer or the broken hallelujah of faith lost or abandoned?
When Justin Timberlake sang this for Haiti relief,the tune dripped with sensuality. KD Lang's interpretation is even more sensual, ironically.
While some of the words don't seem to fit, I believe that this song is an interpretation of 2 Samuel 6:14-15:
"David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets."
From the first verse, David's "secret chord" is the word Hallelujah. The sexual extacy, found also in the biblical verse, carry into David's repeatedly beautiful and haunting song.
God, I don't know your name, or if I even believe, but I can't help singing Hallelujah.
I also believe that David took his ephod off. -
This is the song about a person who sees sexuality/ spirituality as an ecstatic, inseparable act. S/he falls in love with a person who sees only the carnal aspect of sex...
Fails when he can't feel the spirituality he originally felt with her during sex, when he thought he knew her. But he continues to have sex via pure sensation.
He is bitter, and the "Hallelujah" is a mourning of his loss. -
"Well there was a time when you let me know what's really going on below"
is referring to below the surface...the emotions we shared when this relationship was young and full of hope...
then the line
"but now you never show that to me, do you?"
referring to the emotion and hopes are now gone from the relationship.
"Remember when I moved in you"
does not refer to sex. it refers to emotion. When thoughts of being together and hopes for the future together moved you emotionally.
"and the holy dove was moving too"
is referring to how Love moved you. and the last line of this verse "and every breath we drew was hallelujah " The word Hallelujah in this song is the perfect love...in the beginning of a relationship it is all perfect and every breath you spend with that spacial person is euphoric! then reality strikes and
"it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah" -
I’ve enjoyed the previous comments, which both saved me a lot of bible research, and were very illuminating. As alluded to by previous writers, his theological perspective seems very broad. References to Christianity don’t seem to apply since he is a practicing Jew -- although he is also an ordained Zen Buddhist monk.
From various sources, Cohen, in a 1985 interview for the magazine "Guitare et Claviers" said, "Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means "Glory to the Lord". The song explains that many kinds of Hallelujahs do exist. I say: All the perfect and broken Hallelujahs have an equal value. It's a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion.".
Wikipedia is very insightful and worth a read, particularly LCs quote on forgiving and response to grief when he spoke to the Bereaved Families for Peace in Israel in 2009.
His approach to the writing process per a 1998 interview in Wikipedia may parallel his approach to life, and be reflected in the various unresolved emotions in Hallelujah. Writing is "like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it."
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