Music Heard in E.R. Season Finale: Hallelujah

Last night's ER finale (airdate 5-17-2007) featured a haunting version of Leonard Cohen's poem and song "Hallelujah."

The May finale of E.R. included the Jeff Buckley version, which is on his CD "Grace."

Keep reading, there is a lot more to this post.....

However, "Hallelujah" may be best known for appearing in the original "Shrek" movie, as performed by John Cale. Oddly, the Shrek motion picture soundtrack replaced Cale's version with Rufus Wainwright's recording. John Cale's version can be found on "I'm Your Fan." Confused?

This Amazon.com comment says it best:
Rufus Wainwright's cover of Jeff Buckley's cover of John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is not nearly as good as Jeff Buckley's cover of John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." It isn't even as good as John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." However, it is better than Leonard Cohen's version of "Hallelujah." The poem "Hallelujah," also by Leonard Cohen, is better than all of the other Hallelujahs except for Jeff Buckley's cover of John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." There, glad that's settled.

iTunes
John Cale - Hallelujah

Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Allison Crowe - Hallelujah

k.d. lang - Hallelujah

"Lincoln Brewster - Another Hallelujah (Praise Music) --- AWESOME version, listen to the full song here

But the song is much older than the Shrek movie. "Hallelujah" was written and recorded by Leorard Cohen. Jeff Buckey's version is nothing like the Cohen version (see below), I'd say though, it vastly improves upon it. Cale and Wainright are pretty much covering the Buckley version. But there are many more versions of this song, it has TONS of remakes and covers. A few are below.

And to know ALL you ever needed to know about this song, visit the "Hallelujah" Wikipedia page.

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Posted by on May 18, 2007 @ May 18, 2007 05:06 PM    
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