Hallelujah

This was never a hymn nor overtly spiritual although it sounds like both. Leonard Cohen's song of a love gone wrong is filled with religious symbolism. It is like Blake's poem 'Jerusalem' which has more to do with politics and challenging the industrial revolution than in praising Jesus of Nazareth even though it does. Both songs praise what they perceive as God. 'Hallelujah' draws a comparison to God and love and to the point when 'God,' much like the Hindu belief that at the point of orgasm we enter Nirvana/Heaven, explodes within us revealing God not as a deity but as the great unnameable, universal, feeling of joy and love.  The original meaning of the word Hallelujah has overtime been fogged. In the Hebrew Bible Hallelujah is actually a two-word phrase, not one word. However, "Hallelujah" means more than simply "praise Jah" or "praise Yah", as the word hallel in Hebrew means a joyous praise in song, to boast in God. 

Below are three versions of the song starting with John Cale's masterful version and concluding with the original...

I'd 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, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to the kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips, she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well 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 ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, 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
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah