Hallelujah.

Lyrics by Leonard Cohen
Covered by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright

I heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you
well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah
hallelujah...

well 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 her kitchen chair
she broke your throne and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah
hallelujah...

baby i've been here before
i've seen this room and i've walked this floor
i used to live alone before i knew you
i've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
hallelujah...

well there was a time when you let me know
what's really going on below
but now you never show that to me
do you but remember when i moved in you
and the holy dove was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallelujah

well, maybe there's a god above
but all i've ever learned from love
was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
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
hallelujah...


I've listened to this song so many times, and when i first heard it, the lyrics baffled me. Actually it still does. I love this song and how cryptic the lyrics are. I suppose its one of those pieces that will hold a different meaning for each person. I do wonder what was going through Leonard Cohen's mind when he wrote it. (Hopefully it wasn't cause he wrote was high or drunk. Like when we were attempting to analyse Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in English and THEN we found out that the guy wrote it while high on opium... seriously.)

The first mystery in the lyrics - who is david? After some research, I came across this story. David was King David of Israel. The story goes:

*****

David was a good king, David was famous with the people because of the victories God gave him over their enemies. During one of the wars, however, David stayed behind in Jerusalem when his soldiers went off to fight. It was at this time that David fell into grievous sin, which would haunt him for the rest of his life.

As David walked on the roof of his house one evening, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. Someone told him she was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, a Hittite soldier off fighting with David's army. David should have put Bathsheba out of his mind when he heard she was married, but he didn't. Instead he had her brought to the palace and sinned with her there.

Sometime later Bathsheba sent David word she was going to have his baby. David the king over all Israel had committed adultery with one of his soldiers' wives and now there was going to be a child! Desperately he tried to think of a way to cover his sin. Finally David had a plan; he would bring Uriah home from the battlefront and let him visit his wife. Then everyone would think he was the baby's father.

But David's plan didn't work. Uriah came back to Jerusalem, but he wouldn't go down to his house, not even after David got him drunk. He slept with the king's servants instead. He wouldn't let himself enjoy being home with his wife while the other soldiers were having a hard time on the battlefield.

What could David do now? Soon Uriah would hear Bathsheba was going to have a baby, a baby that was not his.

David wrote to Joab, the leader of his army, commanding him, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die. Then he had Uriah take the letter back with him.

When David heard Uriah was dead he told Joab not to feel guilty. "The sword devours one as well as another." David said, just as if Uriah's death had been an ordinary casualty of war.

*****

The story certainly fit in with the lyrics. It provided the back story for the song, but i don't think Cohen intended that the song be just an expression for the story. In fact, it seems to draw away from the story towards the later stanzas. It feels like its the themes of the song that he draws upon. There are 3 layers to this song:

1. The story of David
2. Religion
3. Love

In each stanza there is reference to the 3 elements mentioned above. The title "Hallelujah" means praise.


(Adapted from Mindy Chang, sunny*)



I adapted this from a friend of mine, a fellow blogger. I'm not sure what this has to do with living life as a good Christian or whether or not a lesson would be found behind all this (and I hope that you do discover a personal lesson for yourself) but throughout the chapter of Acts, which I am currently on, the name of King David comes up quite often. I'm not one who knows the Bible all too well, honest to say, so I was kind of baffled as to who this 'King David' really was.

Well, thanks to Mindy's ingenious researching skills, I now know. So to all of you who have also been wondering, here's the story behind it all.

Enjoy.