Unbeknown to his fans, Cohen spent those five years away from the studio writing and tossing and writing and tossing around 80 drafts of Hallelujah. “There were no roadblocks, no disasters it was great start to finish – it was high art, it was just thrilling.” Who Wrote Hallelujah? “Leonard and I got along so well it’s almost scary,” he told Rolling Stone. Lissauer described his time with Cohen as one of the most rewarding experiences of his life. Photo by Richard McCaffrey/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images Along with producer John Lissauer, Cohen experimented with different sounds, introducing synthesizers for the first time into his work. The pressure to release a good, solid LP was especially high, considering he hadn’t released a single song in the preceding five years.
It was the summer of 1983, and Leonard was in New York recording his seventh album, Various Positions. From Bob Dylan in the late ‘80s to Jeff Buckley’s high-pitched version in 1994, Hallelujah is beautiful in every form.
It’s a poem that unites and touches the souls of religious and secular people alike and has grown to become one of the most covered singles of all time. Source: Getty Imagesīut, boy, were they wrong. Hallelujah, Columbia Records believed, would do nothing but put them to sleep. At the time, songs like Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Kenny Loggin’s Footloose were getting listeners up and dancing. When Columbia’s executive producer first heard Hallelujah, he looked Leonard in the eye and muttered, “This is a disaster.” A prayerful hymn with biblical references, Hallelujah wasn’t viewed as a hit that would top the charts. Var finalLink = originalLink + sid + ".aspx?Source=Media" Was_ad_clicked : boolean, was_ad_closed : boolean, close_reason : (string | null), was_ad_liked : boolean*/ *spot_id : string, spot_size : string, spot_scroll_position : number, ad_id : string,ĭemand_source : string, widget_id : (string | null), widget_type : (string | null),Īd_format : (string | null), display_duration : (null | number), was_ad_watched : boolean, _API.FireAdEngagementPixel("etoro_aff_" + kw, "", 0, kw, "etoro", null, "keyword", null, null, true, true, false, null, false) Googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest() adjust the bid in real time before the auction takes place