"It's, as I say, a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion.... It's a rather joyous song." ~ Leonard Cohen, creat...
(more)"It's, as I say, a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion.... It's a rather joyous song." ~ Leonard Cohen, creator of the song, Hallelujah. He says: "I wanted to write something in the tradition of the hallelujah choruses but from a different point of view... It's the notion that there is no perfection ~ that this is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still that is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances." Canadian indie singer-songwriter Allison Crowe's uniquely potent interpretation is heard on her album/CD, "Tidings". music.allisoncrowe.com (The song enjoys increasingly wide appreciation - even marching into the mainstream with performances by American Idol contestants Jason Castro, Lee DeWyze and by UK X Factor winner Alexandra Burke, Dutch X Factor champ Lisa Hordijk, Polish Idol contestant Kasia Popowska, New Jersey rocker Bon Jovi, and Battle of the Blades' skater Claude Lemieux. This popularizing continues - with Maddy Curtis, auditioning in 2010 for American Idol, performing the song, and Matt Morris and Justin Timberlake duetting at the Hope for Haiti event, followed by Céline Dion with the Canadian Tenors' on the Oprah Winfrey Show - the latter a prelude to the 2010 Olympics opening ceremony at which kd lang performed the song. Opera singer Renee Fleming is among the latest to record Hallelujah
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