I think it would be safe to say that interest in mopey singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen may be at an all time high right now. Last week as the result of some dreadlocked clown on American Idol covering Jeff Buckley’s take on Hallelujah the song soared to number one iTunes.
Monday night Cohen was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame by Lou Reed, who gushed over his fellow tribesmen’s lyrics. Yesterday came news that Cohen, who will embark on his first world tour in over 15 years, revealed the European dates. Oh, and the 73 year-old will also put out a new studio album before the year is out too. Not too shabby of a week and a half?
If you didn’t catch the induction ceremonies the other night (which was probably for the best, except for Billy Joel’s hilarious induction of The Coug) Damien Rice did a beautiful rendition of Cohen’s best known song. Enjoy:
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I think I may have set a HT record for hyper-links in one post.
4 Responses
I’ll always attach the Jeff Buckley version with the season three finale of The West Wing — Hallelujah plays as CJ Cregg bodyguard and love interest Simon Donovan (the devilishly handsome Mark Harmon) takes a random bullet in a NYC bodega. It’s a hauntingly beautiful tune for a brilliantly heartrending scene. Good lord, that’s a lot of adverbs.
Rice did it justice. Good shit.
i’m still, and always be partial to cohen’s version… over all other comers…
but who isn’t?
Warren Hayne’s “hallelujah” is the best version of all time, in my own humble opinion.
you gotta see it. the way it was meant. moving and spiritual.
I was wondering why all of a sudden there was a surge in popularity after it being out for as long as it has, even visiable here at SONY in sales.
Makes a gal wonder who does what in terms of musical marketing ploys. I mean how many coke vs. pepsi products do you find in feature films today?