In a previous life I worked and lived existed in Brunei; possibly the most boring country on the planet. There is little to do, unless you make your own entertainment. So I windsurfed and biked and formed PALMS (Panaga Awfully Loud Music Society).
Panaga was where we lived, a camp of sorts with reasonable housing close to the beach. The official justification for PALMS was that it was a select gathering of individuals who would meet on a regular basis to play and discuss good music. “Good” in this instance was anything that me and my co-founder Rene considered acceptable. The real reason for PALMS was an excuse to throw a nominated wife out of the house for the evening, drink too much beer and junk food, and discuss the attractive women in the office. We played music too of course, taking it in turns to play a track, at ever increasing volumes as the evening grew longer and the beer supplies grew shorter. At the end of each offering there would cries of “good choice brother” or “load of bollocks”; the level of critique was indeed impressive.
From time to time we would have theme nights with titles such as “Female singers whose music we like and would want have sex with” (the theme title was abbreviated to the first two words for official publication to wives). One night the theme was “your personal top twenty”, which had all of us pouring over our collections for weeks in advance, trying to perfect our list. I can’t remember my complete list, but I do recall that it included Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley.
Hallelujah was written by Leonard Cohen, the croaking poet composer of many classics. Sometimes his lyrics are fairly straightforward, such as:
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
The Future - Leonard Cohen - lyrics reproduced without permission
Actually, I am not sure what that means, but it sounds good.
Hallelujah is more dense. Based around stories from the old testament, it’s about sex and death and sado-masochism, spirituality and, apparently, orgasm. If you’re going to sing it, sing it with feeling and some interpretation of the words. Of all the offerings, Jeff Buckley’s yearning, haunting voice seems to suit the song best and is regarded by many, including me, as the definitive version. Screw with this classic at your peril.
And now someone has. I get a mail from an acquaintance, who never fails to inadvertently wind me up, raving about some woman who has won a UK TV talent competition called the X-Factor. In the final she sung, or should I say destroyed, Hallelujah, turning it into a gospel/pop shout with an unnecessary key change and zero emotional input. My acquaintance feels that emotion is conveyed by bawling out the words and crying a lot, I think it’s just a karaoke display from yet another publicity-enhanced product of Simon Cowell’s money making machine.
Simmering, I listen to Buckley’s version again, and wished those who voted for the X-Factor junk could hear the real thing.
Then I discover that there are others who feel the same. 126,334 others as of this morning, all members of a Facebook group dedicated to getting the Buckley version up the charts for Xmas. Won’t displace the X-factor selling machine, but number 2 is a possibility; and it will remind the world how this song should be sung.
If you would like to hear he magic of Mr. Buckley, go here.
If you would like to hear the karaoke krap X-Factor version, go here. (Link removed by the taste police).
Comments 🔗
2008-12-21| The Son says#2 now more than a possibility! I wonder if Cohen gets royalty cheques for it, having #1 and #2 in the UK charts at Christmas…
2008-12-22| Spike saysIndeed he does, and the old croaker needs the cash having recently been swindled out of all his savings by his manager. I even got “my acquaintance” to download the Buckley album and he agrees it is great, although in his usual way of not using one word when twenty will do, he expounds: “I still will strongly predict that Burke will be a huge success and because of her own exceptional talent, X-Factor was merely the catalyst that made her fame possible, but it would have been a loss to us all if she had not had this great break that X Factor gives otherwise unknown major talent.” Bollocks.