Ten Favorite Hallelujah Covers
(Boy do people love to perform Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Secondhand Songs has 400 official releases in its catalogue. I would guess that half that many more are missing from the archive, not to mention the thousands of amateur renditions you can find on YouTube. No wonder, since by now “Hallelujah” is surely a standard on the order of “Yesterday” or “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the kind of song that welcomes nearly everyone to feel that it’s somehow expressing one of the barely articulable hidden truths of their own experience. Lots of singers with powerful voices and bad taste oversell the song, but here, by request and in order of preference, are my ten favorite cover versions.)
* My number one and number two are basically tied for first place, but I’m placing the Susanna & the Magical Orchestra version at the top of the list because it’s not as widely known as the Jeff Buckley version.
— May 13, 2021