High Notes & Dance: April 2024

Leonard Cohen had many nicknames, 'pop icon', 'folk icon of the 60's', 'Lord Byron of Rock 'n' Roll'. 'Poet of Pleasure and Pain'. 'Legendary Ladies Man', 'Maestro of Melancholy', 'Canada's High priest of Poetry'.

Leonard Cohen was dedicated to being a songwriter, though he wrote two novels and several books of poems, to me, he is the quintessential lyric poet. The poet of song, the 'lord of song'.

Cohen's poetic lyrics or his tunes didn't fit into any genre of music or recognisable format ever since his debut in 1967 with 'Songs of Leonard Cohen', which came out in the same year as the first albums by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie, his work stood apart and was different from everyone else in the world of Rock and roll, folk, country music, skiffle or anything else. The depth of his lyrics, his care of the language, the philosophies he drew upon and his poetic craftsmanship were absolutely unique. Though one did hear in his music plenty of Spanish guitar, and Spanish Oudh and references to the Spanish poet whom he revered, Frederico Garcia Lorca.

Alan Ginsberg coined the term Lyric poet, to describe Bob Dylan’s songs which he admired, Ginsberg felt that poetic songs bring poetry to a great number of people who would otherwise never have voluntarily strayed into reading poetry.

Writing a lyric is a different discipline from writing poetry, it is the marrying of poetry and melody. And unlike poems, lyrics of songs usually look bland on a page without the structure or the musical form holding them in place. Lyrics are not meant to be read like a poem, but to be heard, they're to be sung. Even so, many of Cohen’s words, like those of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Paul Simon and Tom Waits, among the rocking, folk, or other genre bending lyric poets I’ve come across, can often, but not always, be read on a page without the brilliant music they write, and still be considered poetry.

The beauty is that in addition to his spare, elegant and precise words, Leonard Cohen wrote attractive and sometimes catchy melodies that just fitted the words so well that one can't imagine the words separated from the melody.

A fitting description of the craft of a lyric poet is - the merging of language with melody.

Leonard Cohen’s songs Suzanne, So Long Marianne, Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye, Sisters of Mercy, Famous Blue Raincoat, Dance me to The End of Love, Everybody Knows, Bird on A Wire, I'm Your Man, If It Be Your Will, Take This Waltz, Chelsea Hotel, Joan of Arc, Democracy, The Stranger Songs are just a few of my favourites from his 'Tower of Song'.

Here's what Pico Iyer wrote about Leonard Cohen in 1998. "Cohen has always made a practice of defying every category--he's a community of one--even as he has moved from poems to novels to songs: the only writer I know who managed to become an international singing sensation, the only #1 performer who's also been a prize-winning poet. He tops the charts in Norway and Malaysia, and you hear his spirit behind every new generation of poet-songwriters (there are 12 tribute albums to him worldwide). He defined the Sixties for many of us, with songs like "Suzanne" and "Bird on a Wire"; he caught the bravado of the Eighties ("First We Take Manhattan"), and, having already plunged deep into the time out of time ("Night Comes On"), he then summarized the Nineties ("The Future"). ~ Pico Iyer

But this essay is not about Leonard Cohen, it's about a song he wrote in 1984, ‘Hallelujah’, one of the songs in an album called 'Various Positions'.

The lyrics of the original version of Hallelujah from ‘Various Positions’ was culled to four verses at the last minute before it was recorded, from the 80 verses that Leonard Cohen had written over the course of ten years.

‘Various Positions’ was not a commercial success, nor was the song Hallelujah, noticed at the time. The producer said the album was a mess, especially after hearing Hallelujah, which he didn’t like at all, and reluctantly released Various Positions to limited markets in Europe in 1984 and America the following year (I got the cassette Various Positions from Rhythm House, Bombay in 1988 and couldn't get enough of all the songs in the album - 1. Dance Me To The End Of Love 2. Coming Back To You 3. The Law 4. Night Comes On 5. Hallelujah 6. The Captain 7. Hunter's Lullaby 8. Heart With No Companion 9. If it be your Will)

Hallelujah didn’t make an impression on the radio or the pop charts where Cohen was competing against the music of Michael Jackson and Madonna. Not even when Bob Dylan who liked the song when he heard it and sang it at a few concerts in 1988. John Cale performed his own version of the song in his tribute album to Leonard Cohen ‘I’m your Fan’ in 1991, and then Jeff Buckley sang his version of the song in the 1994, when it was noticed, but the song really took off when Rufus Wainwright sang it, modelled on the John Cale version of the song, in the animated movie ‘Shrek’.

Though the song and its title, to me, is confusing with its uncommon mix of images and thoughts, it still somehow holds together as a song.

"Hallelujah" in modern English, is a shout of praise or thanksgiving to express happiness that a thing hoped or waited for has happened.

Salman Rushdie would many years later note that “only Cohen would rhyme ‘Hallelujah’ with ‘what’s it to ya?’” In fact, every verse is built around the central not-quite-rhyme of “you” and “Hallelujah,” as if the pronunciation of “you” that’s necessary is a recurrent punch line built into the rhythm of the song. Cohen has said, “They are really false rhymes,” “but they are close enough that the ear is not violated.”)

The original version of the song in Various Positions has some biblical references, suggesting the stories of Samson and Delilah from the Book of Judges ("she cut your hair") as well as King David and Bathsheba
("you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you").

Cohen has always been ambiguous about what his "Hallelujah," with its sexual scenery and its religious symbolism, truly "meant." When asked, Cohen has said, "This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled,". "But there are moments when we can ... reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by 'Hallelujah." “I wanted to push the Hallelujah deep into the secular world, into the ordinary world,” he once said. “The Hallelujah, the David’s Hallelujah, was still a religious song. So, I wanted to indicate that Hallelujah can come out of things that have nothing to do with religion.”

Canadian singer K.D. Lang whose effortless, version of Hallelujah Leonard Cohen liked, said in an interview shortly after Cohen's death, that she considered the song to be about "the struggle between having human desire and searching for spiritual wisdom. It's being caught between those two places”

Now this brilliant and beautiful song, with its inspired ascending melody, has been recorded, arranged and reinvented countless times and performed by every type of singer, and sung on all occasions. It has become a secular hymn. A modern standard.

Here are the lyrics of the song

Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah'

Now, I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah