"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," says Leonard Cohen, creator of the song, Hallelujah. "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." Near the start of this century Canada’s Allison Crowe took her place at the grand piano and in a single, first, take recorded her version of the tune that’s a beacon among Cohen’s most cherished. "I love singing Hallelujah", she says. "It's such an awesome song. I just feel humbled." Allison’s singular style’s helped shape the way people hear and perform the song. This century hundreds more covers have poured forth...
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