Hallelujah on UK X-Factor (all threads merged here)

[clarribo]

Hi I'm on the facebook group for the Jeff Buckely Campaign, (though I prefer Leonard's version ) They are saying over there that for some reason amazon DLs do not count towards the UK charts. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

[scorp]

Hi I'm on the facebook group for the Jeff Buckely Campaign, (though I prefer Leonard's version ) They are saying over there that for some reason amazon DLs do not count towards the UK charts. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

hmmmm...looks like the facebook peeps are correct. sales via amazon.co.uk seem not to count. info here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/tagging/foru ... MN4WDHUQUA

oh well, i'll buy off hmv.

[FOXWOOD]

"The music-buying public, however, appears to have decided that Leonard Cohen - poet, novelist, singer-songwriter and ladies' man - has been selling his talent too short for too long."....

The Guardian, Wednesday 17 December 2008



http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/de ... ndra-burke

[scorp]

"The music-buying public, however, appears to have decided that Leonard Cohen - poet, novelist, singer-songwriter and ladies' man - has been selling his talent too short for too long."....

The Guardian, Wednesday 17 December 2008



http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/de ... ndra-burke

no mention of cohen himself being in the charts yesterdya at 34. his version can be downloaded from the following sites, gleaned from the jeff buckkey campaign on facebook:

http://www.7digital.com/artists/jeff-bu ... lelujah-1/ - unencumbered high quality 320k mp3 89p (that's what I'm getting next week).

http://www.tunetribe.com/product/index.html?id=604507 - cheaper but semi-crippled WMA (windows file) only 49p

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 1&s=143444 - 79p but DRM AAC file from Apple

HMV
http://hmv.com/hmvweb/digitalSearch.do? ... rimaryID=8#
Near the bottom, 69p.

The facebook camapgn adds:

PLEASE DONT PURCHASE FROM AMAZON AS THEY DO NOT COUNT TOWARDS THE UK CHARTS...

PLEASE DON'T MULTIPLE DOWNLOAD FROM ONE SITE - USE AS MANY DIFFERENT SITES AS POSSIBLE TO MAKE SURE EACH PURCHASE IS COUNTED.

[Steve Wilcox]

From Daily Star - 16/12/2008
by NIGEL PAULEY

But, there's also an reference to S&M with: "She tied you to a kitchen chair, She broke your throne and she cut your hair, And from your lips she drew the hallelujah."

S&M!? Have any of you ever taken this line that way?

To me it is a reference to the biblical Samson who was unsuccessfully tied up many times ("she (successfully) tied you to a kitchen chair") and then to the loss of his strength ("she broke your throne") by the cutting of his hair ("and she cut your hair"); the kitchen chair here maybe a literal reference to a situation involving Leonard and whomever the love interest is in the song (i.e. the one who never cared for music) - and apparently Leonard doesn't have much household furniture. I've considered that maybe it's a reference to the actual chair Marianne is sitting in on Songs From A Room.

Moreover - I see the meaning as -

"She" is the Spirit, Holy Ghost, Universal Chi, goddess, String Theory, etc. whatever term suits your fancy
"She tied you to a kitchen chair" - represents Surrender
"She broke your throne and she cut your hair" - represents destruction of the ego (throne, power) and vanity (hair)
"And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah." - with Surrender in place and the Ego and vanity gone, our subject was able to experience the Hallelujah, Christ-consciousness, enlightenment, etc. whatever term suits your fancy

Anyway, no matter how I've interpreted the lines, S&M never crossed my mind. Now "Light As The Breeze" -

"And you're weak and you're harmless, and you're sleeping in your harness, and the wind going wild in the trees,
and it ain't exactly prison, but you'll never be forgiven, for whatever you've done with the keys.
So I knelt there at the delta, at the alpha and the omega, at the cradle of the river and the seas."

that's another story!

[UrPal]

"The music-buying public, however, appears to have decided that Leonard Cohen - poet, novelist, singer-songwriter and ladies' man - has been selling his talent too short for too long."....

The Guardian, Wednesday 17 December 2008



http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/de ... ndra-burke

no mention of cohen himself being in the charts yesterdya at 34. his version can be downloaded from the following sites, gleaned from the jeff buckkey campaign on facebook:

http://www.7digital.com/artists/jeff-bu ... lelujah-1/ - unencumbered high quality 320k mp3 89p (that's what I'm getting next week).

http://www.tunetribe.com/product/index.html?id=604507 - cheaper but semi-crippled WMA (windows file) only 49p

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 1&s=143444 - 79p but DRM AAC file from Apple

HMV
http://hmv.com/hmvweb/digitalSearch.do? ... rimaryID=8#
Near the bottom, 69p.

The facebook camapgn adds:

PLEASE DONT PURCHASE FROM AMAZON AS THEY DO NOT COUNT TOWARDS THE UK CHARTS...

PLEASE DON'T MULTIPLE DOWNLOAD FROM ONE SITE - USE AS MANY DIFFERENT SITES AS POSSIBLE TO MAKE SURE EACH PURCHASE IS COUNTED.

Those links are all very well if you want Jeff Buckley's version to be placed high in the charts as the "serious rival" for poll position, but can someone please post the corresponding download links to the original song for Cohen fans who want to remain true to the trail and download Cohen singing his own song with a view to it getting a placing in the chart? A post of those links on a new campaign thread might be sensible to maximise voter consciousness.

What's the problem with going for a 1,2,3?

[gingermop]

Dear all

I would also like to see Leonard’s own version of Hallelujah go up the charts, if only for the novelty of seeing him have a top 40 hit.

There are two places you can download his version from, where it counts towards the official UK chart. These are:

Play.com (65p) : http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download- ... id=6760034

HMV.co.uk : (69p) http://hmv.com/hmvweb/digitalProductDet ... Id=3007434

On the HMV one, scroll down and buy the individual track. I believe HMV will ask you to download their software too, so Play.com is far better (in my opinion). In fact, their top 100 downloads currently has FOUR incidences of Hallelujah!

No.1 (Alexandra Burke)
No.3 (Jeff Buckley)
No.44 (Jeff Buckley album version)
No.63 (Leonard’s)

Happy downloading,

Gina

[Paula]

Got this off the BBC website today

This link also says there are 80 verses I know at one stage Leonard said there were approximately 80 verses but I don't think we are privy to what they are.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7787355.stm

All this hue and cry. It's not even my favourite Cohen song.

I have downloaded Leonard from HMV. Scorp I found him in "My music" in the end but it was under Leonard Cohen and seeing as all my other albums are under the same name took me a while to find him.

[Mabeanie1]

There are two places you can download his version from, where it counts towards the official UK chart. These are:

Play.com (65p) : http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download- ... id=6760034

HMV.co.uk : (69p) http://hmv.com/hmvweb/digitalProductDet ... Id=3007434

I pushed the boat out and, at great expense, downloaded from both. Of the two sites, Play.com was not only the cheaper option but also the easier one to do by far.

W

[Habie]

Isn't this fun???!!!
All us serious-minded, maybe even po-faced Cohenites + Cohen scholars going head to head with screaming teenyboppers to get 'our song' into the charts!
Hurrah for Hallelujahs, in all their forms.

Just a few comments :
- Paula, loved your eagle-eyed spotting of consecutive Christmas songs by Leona, Leon, Leonard. Next year, Leonardo da Vinci's version of I Tried to Leave You.

- Re lyrics : I dunno, but it always seemed to me that Cohen songs - and all serious poetry - can never be 'definitively' interpreted line by line - which is part of the joy of poetry in general, why it lasts, why it's so much more than just writing.

For Hallelujah alone I've read dozens of interpretations, on this website and in books about Leonard, in media articles from arcane journals to the Daily Star, etc etc, even well before the current passion for analysing the song ... and no two interpretations are ever exactly the same. Ditto for Famous Blue Raincoat and all LC's work, Dylan songs, Blake or Yeats poems, etc.

If I've correctly understood the comments people like Leonard, Dylan and co make in interviews, when you compose poetry you don't always know yourself exactly what every word is intended to mean... or the meaning can change over time... or you realise more layers of meaning in your work only when others point them out later or you get further away from the emotions that generated the song in the first place.... or while you're writing, you find words that are right even if they aren't necessarily meaning-specific ... to me, great poetry feels true even if I'm not sure with each line what the truth is.

If Hallelujah FEELS true /enlightening /relevant to the person hearing it, do we NEED to know exactly what each line means? Can't an orgasm also be a religious prayer? Can't David and Bathsheba also be Leonard and his lover? Can't the Bible also be a private love letter? Can't shooting at someone who outdrew you be either murder or just a quiet killer-comment after ending up in bed with the woman the other guy wanted? Can't a cold and broken hallelujah be terrible and tragic but also uplifting and stimulating in its beauty? Can't 'moving in you' be about sexual intercourse but also poetry? Can't all meanings be true simultaneously?

I suppose because Hallelujah is going to be Number 1 it's aquired a new must-be-analysed status, since Number 1's usually feature lyrics as complex and challenging as 'There can be miracles, when you believe' (Leon 2007); 'What if I told you it was all meant to be, would you believe me, would you agree?' (Leona 2006) or 'I'm not here to let your love go, I'm not giving up oh no, I'm here to win your heart and soul, That's my goal' (Shane Ward 2005).
Feh!
Here's to poetry seeping through; to supermarket aisles, pop radio stations, through teenagers' living rooms, into the pages of the Daily Star... here's to poetry getting everywhere. Who cares if Alexandra and Cheryl wouldn't know a Holy Dove if it bit them on the nose; the beauty of beautiful words reaches them anyway, and everyone else who hears the song. And maybe in future other poets will have Christmas Number Ones by popular demand [okay, that's a dream too far - more realistically, if they happen to coincide with Sony and Cowell's business interests].

Happy times,
Habie

[scarifier]

Long time Leonard fan and lurker here, and despite having been visiting the forums for quite some time now, it's the whole X Factor thing that has moved me to create an account. You see, I had this silly thought, and I wanted to share it with people who knew what I was talking about. This thought came off the back of reading (on another forum) a Jeff Buckley fan's outrage at the audacity of another singer in covering 'his' song (and I quote: "nobody has the right to sing it except Jeff"), my mirth when explaining this misplaced outrage to my husband, and our shared joy that Leonard will effectively be at Number 1 for Christmas.

My thought was just that the "Blaze of light" verse in its entirety seems extremely appropriate for the situation

...aaand now back to lurking

[osmachar]

Isn't this fun???!!!
... when you compose poetry you don't always know yourself exactly what every word is intended to mean... or the meaning can change over time... or you realise more layers of meaning in your work only when others point them out later or you get further away from the emotions that generated the song in the first place.... or while you're writing, you find words that are right even if they aren't necessarily meaning-specific ... to me, great poetry feels true even if I'm not sure with each line what the truth is.

....

And the same thing means something different to different people as well.

[dharma]

I just saw the "Hallelujah Chart Battle" being discussed on the BBC News channel - they even played an excerpt of LC's version.

Tis a weird world!

[Habie]

Yup, weird and wonderful...

[Deena]

Hi Scarifier - know exactly what you're talking about and I've had that verse on my mind so much lately...see you in lurksville

Long time Leonard fan and lurker here, and despite having been visiting the forums for quite some time now, it's the whole X Factor thing that has moved me to create an account. You see, I had this silly thought, and I wanted to share it with people who knew what I was talking about. This thought came off the back of reading (on another forum) a Jeff Buckley fan's outrage at the audacity of another singer in covering 'his' song (and I quote: "nobody has the right to sing it except Jeff"), my mirth when explaining this misplaced outrage to my husband, and our shared joy that Leonard will effectively be at Number 1 for Christmas.

My thought was just that the "Blaze of light" verse in its entirety seems extremely appropriate for the situation

...aaand now back to lurking