This is the only cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” we need right now
Leonard Cohen. Image by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
By PJ Grisar May 26, 2020
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” began its life, in 1984’s “Various Positions,” as a profoundly weird song with gospel choir accompaniment, a painfully-of-its-era drum machine and a stentorian and unemotive delivery from the poet himself. But you don’t really care for that music, do you?
For many, the template for all covers of Cohen’s initially unremarked ballad is Jeff Buckley’s pained, minimalist interpolation recorded shortly before his death in 1997 (Buckley’s own cover was informed by Welsh musician John Cale’s piano version from 1991). Now, every busker has the song in their repertoire, it was featured in “Shrek,” and the tune has even had viral traction in Yiddish. Bono did a trip-hop version. Everyone has a riff on this originally inaccessible track. The fact is not lost on comic and musician Matt Beuchele.
In a Memorial Day Twitter post, Beuchele impersonated a minyan of artists performing a verse from Cohen’s secular hymn. It’s great.
10 singers sing hallelujah pic.twitter.com/orw02bWDTh
— Matt Buechele (@mattbooshell) May 25, 2020
While sticking to a minimal bed of piano, Beuchele summons crooner Tony Bennett, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, the last of whom was among the first to perform the song in concert and dug it for its “point-blank I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself aspect of the song,” whatever that means.
In a gesture to Cohen’s native Quebec, Celine Dion joins in (like she did in this clip). From here, the voices become unmistakable in their idiosyncracies. Kermit the Frog warbles out a few verses, paving the way for shabbos goy Elvis Presley, songstress Britney Spears, Oscar-winner Randy Newman and the unmistakable embouchure of Louis Armstrong. But the final guest sticks the landing with Beuchele’s nod to an unmistakable vocal tic from one of pop punk’s leading lights.
Here at the Grisar domicile, Beuchele received perfect 10s from two-thirds of the judges with the East German judge awarding him a 6.3. (The East German judge moonlights at Pitchfork.)
Cohen’s inventive, trippy and lyrically evocative song may have been cheapened in one too many earnest renditions. We commend Beuchele for cleansing our palate with his comedic take on the tune until we’re all outdoors — and subjected to endless street performer variations of it — once more.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at Grisar@Forward.com.
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