Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah Meaning
Song Released: 1984
Covered By: Rufus Wainwright (2007), Jordan Smith (2015), Pentatonix (2016)
Hallelujah Lyrics
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Hallelujah is a Hebrew word meaning "Praise Yahweh". Yahweh is God. Cohen is misusing this word for other purposes. He believed that hallelujah had more meanings, when it really doesn't. The most popular meaning of Hallelujah is to praise our Lord. That should be the only meaning for halleluhjah. He shouldn't use Biblical stories and characters to compare them with his sexual desires and relationships. There is a true meaning to each story he talked about in his song. Read the stories, it's amazing what you'll learn.
Honestly, I don't think this song has a meaningful purpose. If it's just about sex and relationships, then I don't even think it should be a song.
Hallelujah should strictly be used to praise our Lord and Savior. No one should use Hallelujah to glorify other things, that's misusing the word.
:) God Bless. -
This song can be over interpretated and I think it just deals with the plight and journey of man when we all deal with the crisis of faith, love, and living and an expression
of living.
Hallelujah can be a expression of joy or sadness as expressed in this song.
I love this and can relate, we all have been there before, walked this same floor (love) and the loss of communication
as it fades.
As far as David not liking Music, he was sent to make Saul better and was not really doing it for his pleasure but Saul's so"You really don't like the music"
So Saul sends for David, and makes him one of his armor-bearers, and David remains in the service of Saul, and "whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him."
I am sorry I am not so specific but I can relate to this song line by line relating to life,love, and faith.BJ
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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If this wonderful, powerful song is "about" anything, it's about joy and pain, triumph and disaster, agony and ecstacy--in short, about how we are as human beings.
I believe the biblical references are metaphor and framework, not meant to be literal. Cohen has always written from a deeply spiritual core.
Can love save us? Maybe not...but in the moment, we will shout "Hallelujah!" and in the moment we feel saved. And even in the agony of love "gone wrong," we will be grateful for it.
If you want to add another rich dimension, listen to K.D. Lang's amazing rendition of this song from 2005. It's on Youtube. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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Listen to Caruso or any one singing the song The Lost Chord then go back to Hallelujah.
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First of all, sorry by my English. I hope you may undterstand my interpretation. I think it is a dialogue between David and God, speaking a verse by time. David had an intimate dialogue with God before Bathseba. "There was a time you let me know
What's really going..."
In this part of the relationship you can walk over the water. Then he sunk.
He lost this intimacy, for a wild feeling, then He realized he had nor one neither other. In this soul feeling, He doubts if anytime he really knew God, or was only an emotion. "You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you? "
I think the author didn´t mean to write a Biblical song, but a deception feeling about love is whath the author is speaking about. Being passioned x belong in a spiritual way. Kitchen chair x throne. Broken x Holy.
Then He is trying to come again to start point. -
One nice thing about great songs is it can be taken so many ways. I read into it about how a Church can fail us. God won't but mankind will every time... That's just me. :)
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Leonard Cohen on Hallelujah Finally there’s no conflict between things, finally everything is reconciled but not where we live. This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah’. That regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you embrace the thing and you just say ‘Hallelujah! Blessed is the name.’ And you can’t reconcile it in any other way except in that position of total surrender, total affirmation.
“That’s what it’s all about. It says that none of this - you’re not going to be able to work this thing out - you’re not going to be able to set - this realm does not admit to revolution - there’s no solution to this mess. The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say ‘Look, I don’t understand a f***ing thing at all - Hallelujah!’ That’s the only moment that we live here fully as human beings.”
Magic tune..... -
King David chased after the wrong woman,
then wrote a song of remorse that pleased God.
But you don't care about a song like that because you are the wrong woman.
David tested God with a forbidden woman and she was allowed to break David.
This bad relationship is not going to work.
This doomed relationship seemed to begin well but failed.
My love for God was injured any my joy taken because I entered into this wrong relationship. -
I feel the meaning is fairly obvious, although certainly not every line and reference is obvious or easy to explain.
The poem is called Hallelujah because that is precisely what it is - a hymn of praise.
The word is Hebrew - from hallel - which means "praise."
Hallelujah means praise to God.
This is a song of praise to God. Of the many aspects of god which of course Leonard Cohen would recognize (god of vengeance, of creation, of mercy, etc. ), it is the god of song to whom the praise is offered.
But there is more. In Cohen's imagery, and we understand it easily, hallelujah is the exclamation of joy during sexual pleasure. The confusion or mixing up of a song of praise to god and the joy of sexual love and pleasure are deliberate.
The wonderful biblical allusions - King David, Samson - and then the rougher experience of more contemporary lovers show in ordinary language how love is - imperfect, destructive, disappointing, and so on. Yet, it is the experience, the act, that inspires us to feel transcendent joy, to cry out hallelujah (literally "praise to god").
The choice of King David is perfect. David, like Leonard Cohen, sought to experience the divine through his music (his psalms and his playing) and his love for women.
It is a bit of a paradox that sexual love and music are the two experiences that inspire praise of god, but it is also pretty wonderful, isn't it?
When at the end of the poem the singer/poet stands before the god of song with nothing on his lips but hallelujah - it seems to me the ultimate declaration of praise and affirmation. -
I feel the meaning is fairly obvious, although certainly not every line and reference is obvious or easy to explain.
The poem is called Hallelujah because that is precisely what it is - a hymn of praise.
The word is Hebrew - from hallel - which means "praise."
Hallelujah means praise to God.
This is a song of praise to God. Of the many aspects of god which of course Leonard Cohen would recognize (god of vengeance, of creation, of mercy, etc. ), it is the god of song to whom the praise is offered.
Also, in Cohen's imagery - and we understand it easily - hallelujah is the exclamation of joy during sexual pleasure. The confusion or mixing up of a song of praise to god and the joy of sexual love and pleasure are deliberate.
The wonderful biblical allusions - King David, perhaps even Susannah whose bathing aroused the elders, Samson and Delilah - show in ordinary language how love is - imperfect, destructive, disappointing, and so on - yet, it is the experience, the act, that inspires us to feel transcendent joy, to cry out hallelujah (literally "praise to god").
The choice of King David is perfect. David was, perhaps a bit like Leonard Cohen, driven by the divine he experienced in music (his psalms and his playing) and his love for women.
It is a bit of a paradox that sexual love and music are the two experiences that inspire such praise.
When at the end of the poem the singer/poet stands before the god of song with nothing on his lips but hallelujah - it seems to me the ultimate declaration of praise and affirmation. -
Interpreted by : Francis O'Brien
**Many times Cohen says hallelujah in many different contexts; this is the core of the song and will be explained at the end of the analysis.
For the first part:
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
This relates to the story of King David who was had an intimate relation with god and was also a great harp player (secret cord/pleased the lord). The hallelujah at the end of this verse is a happy and spiritual one.
Second part:
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
In this part Cohen relates to the story of David and Bathsheba when David was walking on the roofs he saw her bathing and seduced her ending up committing adultery and lost a lot of influence and weakened his link with god (broken throne). Then we move to the story of Samson who gets his hair cut and loses all his powers, once again, a broken throne. In this verse, the hallelujah is a very sad and desperate one.
Third Part:
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
In this part Cohen talks about the ambivalence of love and its effect on your faith. It can be glorious like a flag on a marble arch or it can be cold and broken. And when in heart break you may lose or strengthen your faith, in this case it is strengthened because he still praises the lord in the end. In this case, the hallelujah is (obviously) cold and broken.
Fourth Part:
There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
This is an obvious reference to sexuality and that even through an act as disgraceful as sex you can still praise the lord. In this verse the hallelujah can be interpreted as an “orgasmic” one.
Fifth Part:
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
This is a reference to one of the ten commandments and through this Cohen is trying to make the listener understand that religion and faith is not etched in stone and that every one should interpret the holy texts and religion in his own way and that there is no “Right Way” to believe. This is an uncertain hallelujah, meaning that he is not sure what to believe but he believes anyway.
Sixth Part:
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
In this part, he has found what to believe in and realizes his past errors but he is ready to face the lord because he now has complete faith. This hallelujah is one of total faith and love for “the lord”.
Hallelujahs:
The song revolves around the word Hallelujah, which is a Hebrew word which means praise Yah/Jah or the Lord. And through the song, he says that all Hallelujahs are of equal value no matter the circumstance or the cause of the act. Weather it is in complete blissful faith or is from broken desperation, all ways and goals to prise the lord mean the same and are all equal. -
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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