Listening to Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” I did a Google search and was surprised to find that
The Hallelujah Chorus is Satanic!!!
Go ahead, click on the link.
Good thing that Buckley’s version doesn’t have any drums! But the question is, if we aren’t to be literal, then where do we draw our lines? Why isn’t Buckley’s song canonized? It seems he knows the secret chord (E minor?)
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
But King David, probable author of many Psalms, not caring for the music? Or is it the almighty who doesn’t care for music? As the prophet Homer Jay might say, “Mmm, Sacrelicious.”
On a David note: I have often wondered how my parents knew that I would have red hair (well it was red when I was a wee lad!), considering neither of my parents had red hair. Hindsight on imagined precognition is what I practice here at the Quantum Pontiff!
But King David, probable author of many Psalms, not caring for the music? Or is it the almighty who doesn’t care for music?
The “you” in that sentence refers to whoever he’s singing the song to (presumably an ex-lover, but the second verse is a little hard to figure). See the later verses– I doubt he was moving in King David…
Well when I first heard the song, I thought the “you” was an ex-lover. But on listening to the song a few more times I decided otherwise. The main reason for this was, like you say Chad, in the second verse the “you” is clearly David and the she is Bathsheba (whom dear old David committed adultery with and so the almighty punished him by killing their son, etc. etc. Absalom! Absalom!),
But confusingly, also, the reference to cut your hair is Sampson, I think, not David. Very strange.
Now by the third verse, the reference to David seems to fade away even more:
etc. etc. as you make your way to the end of the song the references to David grow fainter and fainter.
My theory is that, since this song is a modification of an earlier song by Leonard Cohen, that the new author interpreted the first verses differently than the original author! Indeed the lyrics to the Cohen song include the first two verses but are different for the last two.
My partner Jen and I were wondering this a while back, and looked it up in the Bible. Rather to our surprise, David does, indeed, come across Bathsheba bathing on the roof.
Weird trivia: about 3 minutes of the first Shrek movie is taken up with this song. At zillions of dollars per animated minute, I figure that the Director must seriously like this song.
The song really flips weirdly between a couple of different viewpoints. The second verse is definitely a King David reference, while the first, third, and fifth are clearly something else. The “he pasted two songs together” theory probably isn’t a bad one.
(The Buckley version leaves off the last two verses of this version, and switches the order of the fourth and fifth verses, but doesn’t add any significant new material. Any viewpoint-switching is Leonard Cohen’s fault.)
Leonard Cohen himself (in various articles from 1985 to 1988) said that he changed the point of view not only from the first verse to the last, but also over the years with new verses. His intention in doing this was to provide a more secular than Biblical perspective. (See interview, April 17, 1988, Antwerp)
i believe you read the link ‘hallelujah chorus is satanic’ that take us to another site!
there they say that the music is satanic just because in the chorus a drum is played!
give me a break!
and he fights for his argoument saiyng that in the Bible is always mentioned plenty instruments, but a drum is never mentioned!
give me a second break!
I believe he never did read the whole Bible (and I understand!), ´cause in 1 Samuel 18:6 there is the following thing:
6 When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes.
i would like to remember that tambourine is a little drum and in some tradutions of the Holly Bible, we can see DRUM really!
Look that David is mentioned too in this passage!
there a lot of more times that drum is mentioned!
sorry about the english mistakes, im brazilian! 😀
I think part of the problem is sheer ignorance (lack of research) on the part of the writer concerning his Biblical subjects. Someone above noted how surprised they were to find that David actually saw Bathsheba bathing on a roof. Well, duh! That is one of the better-known stories about King David! Perhaps the songwriter was just as ignorant of his Biblical sources: what other explanation could there be for his having confused King David with Sampson in the “cut his hair” reference? (If someone out there knows how this phrase actually relates to King David, please enlighten me, since I’m genuinely curious.)
But in reference to the original question, I think the songwriter may have indeed intended “You” as a reference to the Almighty, and may have intended this line as a sarcastic comment referencing the predeliction of many conservative religious groups to disapproving of entire blocks of music (the “Satanic” link above gives just one example!) as being intrinsically evil. Someone who based their opinions about music on the teachings of these churches might conclude that God doesn’t care for music, in spite of the fact that Scripture frequently references music in a positive way. Rather an oxymoronic position on the part of these churches, and the author may have been pointing out the irony of it. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, consider how many Midwestern and Southern churches held forth for many years on the evils of dancing, even though the Bible clearly references dancing as a positive way of rejoicing and praising the Almighty.
It’s a song people. He merged a couple of biblical stories, threw in some songwriting bits and meant it as a metaphor. Later the same tune included some heartbreaking lyrics about love lost and it became a lamentation involving those same biblical stories. It isn’t meant literally in any way.
Why would a cecullar song use hallelujha as the chorus cause it means parise ‘Yahweh” . Yahweh is gods actual name, it don’t mean praise any god.
OMG What else will be satanic these days. Probably the bible. Just because there is drums in the chores doesn’t mean it’s satanic! There is a song in my language A CHRISTIAAN song that uses the word drums so do not tell me that drums is satanic then the Bible can also be satanic as it is made from material.
David represents the human condition. He loves the Lord, and The Lord loves him, because the Lord knows our hearts, and David had a good heart, but his humanity leaves him open to the temptations of the human soul.
I think this song is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It is David’s wife, and his own soul crying out in the pain of the human condition and for letting his God down. Of course, we all know that David didn’t stop at just adultery….he also had Batsheva’s husband, a loyal soldier, murdered, to alleviate his own guilt.
He betrayed his wife and murdered one of his most obedient soldiers for a moment’s passion, yet God loved him still.
Yet, his wife suffered. There is little mention of her faithfulness to David in spite of his infidelities. Obviously, she forgave him as did their Lord.
This song sings to me of the pain she held within her heart.
This song again, has me listening over and over since Justin Timberlake sang it for the Concert for Haiti. It’s just so beautiful, and like all music, to each his own. All I can say is… Cindy I believe you’ve got it!