What does Hallelujah mean?

Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah Meaning

Album cover for Hallelujah album cover

Song Released: 1984


Covered By: Rufus Wainwright (2007), Jordan Smith (2015), Pentatonix (2016)


Get "Hallelujah" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

Hallelujah Lyrics

Lyrics removed by the request of NMPA

  1. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 24th 2016 !⃝

    I feel the beginning is about king David from the Bible. And then maybe Samson and Delilah. The. I'm lost

  2. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 21st 2016 !⃝

    Knowing a little about LC's life may be helpful out. He was raised in a conservative Jewish family and his father was a Talmudic Scholar. Early in his life he was an admired and prolific poet. His poems, essays, and interviews made it clear he was in a life long struggle to understand God, which included a few years formally studying Buddhism. But, he always said that he was Jewish and had not abandoned his faith, and while he was not strict in his observance, when he passed away this year we learned he had requested a an Orthodox Jewish service.
    So, what does that tell us about the song. 1st it helps to understand the subtle difference between the Jewish and Christian meaning of the word Hallelujah. For Christians it is a word of praise for God, a nown..."I Praise You". But in Hebrew, it is a direction, a verb...(You/We) "Give Praise to God". So, what LC is saying in all the stanzas is that he (we) must still give praise to God, even when we are "cold & broken".
    His original recorded version only had the four verses that related to God and the struggle of faith. Years later he added the three new verses clearly related to the joy and pain of human love. In the Jewish faith, the joy in sex is one of God's gifts and to LC it had a spiritual dimension.
    LC once claimed to have written many more verses for the song/poem? that were never published.
    So, in the end it is an uplifting poem about the struggle to see the and understand the gifts of God. And, while LC was a Jew, he saw this as a common struggle for people of faith. And, as a poet, he would not be upset if you found your own meaning in his words. And, that's why he never bothered to explain them.

  3. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 19th 2016 !⃝

    All of these explanations ignore the terms The fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift. What the hell do these musical terms mean and how do they impact the meaning of the whole song.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 18th 2016 !⃝

    I agree with the first one, but by no means think it has anything to do with Christmas.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 18th 2016 !⃝

    I think it is about our imperfect lives that God will accept in the end.

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 6th 2016 !⃝

    I think we needed Mr Cohen's explanation. Why was it never sought? All I can say is the first two verses are spiritual.

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 4th 2016 !⃝

    The Lord God the Father the Son & the Holy Spirit have so loved man/woman that all should rejoice for this as well as human loves lost or kept.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 25th 2016 !⃝

    I've read all the interpretations. I wish we had Leonard Cohen's input. I do subscribe to the idea that this is about a broken love. Haunting and melancholy...I really like Pentatonix's a cappella version. Just enjoy it...

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 18th 2016 !⃝

    This song is simply about a fight with a spouse/lover.

    Verse 1:
    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

    The writer is saying he thought of his lover as his "god" but everything he does is not very pleasing to her. He even does stuff that would be pleasing to the one true Lord but she still rejects it.


    Verse 2:
    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

    Even though he loves his lover, he is a weak man and cheated on his lover, just like David did with Bathsheba (sinned against God), and Samson did by revealing to Delilah the source of his strength. The affair did not end well, and it appears now his lover has found out about it.


    Verse 3:
    Maybe there's a God above
    But all I've ever learned from love
    Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
    And it's not a cry that you hear at night
    It's not somebody who's seen the light
    It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

    He and his lover are now trading barbs in their argument. "All we ever do now is fight." Nobody wins in a lover's quarrel.


    Verse 4:
    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

    He is saying he can live without her, but he doesn't want to. He's telling her that she is claiming that "she won" by kicking him to the curb, but no one is winning because he says they LOVE each other.


    Verse 5:
    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

    He is making one more plea to his lover to take him back. Remember the good times. Also throws in one little barb - "You never even try to share your feelings (or sex) with me any more!"


    Verse 6:
    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

    Resignation. He is saying I tried hard to do good in this relationship (other than the affair) and you are not even trying to work this out. "I've done everything I can to make up for my mistake, and if you won't accept it there is nothing else I can do about it. Even though his prior mistake (affair) hurts him, he is moving on with his life with no regrets about the past.

  10. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 17th 2016 !⃝

    In "Hallelujah", LC may deal with something he experienced in his private live. He may have fallen in love with a woman who was the partner of somebody else. The attraction was too strong to resist. Quite possibly, for her abandoned partner this was a tragedy. Now, after months or years of deep and hot love,the lovers have drifted apart.

    Remorse has gained the upper hand. For LC it is a small comfort that something similar happened to king David.

    What he makes of it, is touching and admirable. It's one of the best poems and songs we have.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 16th 2016 !⃝

    How about an opposite interpretation? This song is about the rejection of spiritual communion with God. David plays his heartfelt secret chord for the Lord, who is pleased at David's attempts to worship, since that strokes the Lord's ego, and the Lord praises David's attempts but does not truly appreciate his urgent creative expression. The Lord doesn't care for his music, or even David's love, he only cares for the worship. He does not love him back. So, David takes his unrequited love for the Lord and turns to a woman. She gleefully takes his power, but in return, gives him pleasure and understanding that he did not receive from God. The tying to a kitchen chair and haircut is a metaphor for being humbled by the return of his love. Giving up his power in return for this earthly pleasure brings a Halleluja to his lips and a gratefulness for love and understanding that God could not extract. He now worships her, and her ability to give him pleasure and love. He resists judgement by other people for his decision to worship this woman over God. Then, in the final verses, he describes that it was the lack of God's actual love for him that led him to live a life in pursuit of love in the mortal world instead. He now worships his own creativity (the lord of song) and human love.

  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 15th 2016 !⃝

    Leonard Cohen is an enlightened man. His song 'Sisters of Mercy' attests to his own experience with unity.
    Hallelujah is a song of gratitude.

  13. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 14th 2016 !⃝

    A truly great Song has many interpretations.
    Ironi and desillusion can also be heard.
    But Cohen keeps saying halleluja in spite of all hardship and shortcomings.
    I hope the Lord of Song will let him sing forever.

  14. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 14th 2016 !⃝

    Hallelujah is one of the most beautiful songs one could ever sing or listen to. But it's not about God, it's about the beauty as well as the Heart break of love between a man and a woman. I could go verse by verse, but if you take the last verse " as I moved inside you" as they reached orgasm together, they sang the hallelujah.
    It's beautiful. But it is not a Christmas song. It makes me smile when it shows up on a Christmas album or better yet with a choir singing it. So I am going to go one step further and say God made humans to be sexual beings and I think He smiles everytime this song is sung for His glory. Hallelujah!

  15. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 14th 2016 !⃝

    Take the lyrics away and it's a moving tune.




More Leonard Cohen songs »


 


Latest Articles

 


Submit Your Interpretation

[ want a different song? ]




Just Posted

Mad Hatter anonymous
Fire Lake anonymous
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead anonymous
We Gotta Get out of This Place anonymous
Jealous anonymous
Won't Get Fooled Again anonymous
Smokestack Lightning anonymous
True Colors anonymous
Future Love Paradise anonymous
Adios, Adios anonymous
Strangers anonymous
Possibility anonymous
Jailbreak anonymous
Sour Girl anonymous
Cornflake Girl anonymous

(We won't give out your email)