“The minor fall, the major lift”: Hallelujah by John Cale

Back in February, my Chicagoland counterpart, Kingsley Tang, wrote a great blog post that focused on the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah”. He also mentioned some of the greatest covers of that song. I noticed that he had excluded my favorite version, the one performed by John Cale. When I mentioned this to Kingsley, he said that Cale’s version never really did anything for him, but he was curious as to why I liked it so much (by the way, read his blog. It’s very well done).

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a huge Velvet Underground fan After listening to the solo projects of both Cale and Lou Reed, I quickly figured out that Cale was the true musical force behind the VU. I love Lou Reed, but he lost his fire after Berlin (1973). However, that’s not the reason why Cale's cover is my favorite.

By 1984, Leonard Cohen had abandoned his distinctive acoustic centric folk sound for a synthesized motif. The problem is that he didn’t change his folk style lyrics. So you have this weird blend of 80s pop music with Bleecher Street lyrics. Thus is the back story of “Hallelujah”. Cohen’s biblical lyrics over an aggressive bass line changed from studio version to multiple live performances. The song was potentially beautiful, but really a mess.

On the 1991 tribute album, I’m Your Fan, John Cale became the first to cover “Hallelujah”. Cale dropped the background choir and just played the piano. By playing the piano, the hypnotic melody of the song (which was hidden in Cohen’s version) is brought to the forefront. Cale didn’t re-write the song, but it was a noticeable change.

Cale’s vocals make you feel that the song really is a “Hallelujah!” Don’t get me wrong, I love Jeff Buckley’s version of the song, however he has more than a hint of pain in his voice. While it’s beautifully articulated, I just don’t feel that it fits the lyrics of the song.

Cale’s cover was the inspiration of Buckley’s version. If you listen to the guitar, Buckley focuses on the same melody that Cohen buried and Cale brought to life. Buckley also uses the same lyrics that John Cale selected from the 15 pages of original verse.

Basically, if John Cale didn’t cover this song, Buckley, Rufus Wainwright (whose version is identical to Cale’s) and the countless others probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Why is Cale's the best? Because the others weren’t covering Cohen…they were covering Cale.

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Across the Universe

I'm going to lose some street cred on the initial statement, but by the end of this, I believe my point may be made. Since nobody else will say it, I will. The Beatles are overrated.

Now, let me clarify that statement. The later Beatles catalogue makes up for the earlier work, but if you're grading on an average, the Beatles are far from being the A students for which almost everyone gives them credit. If you step back and take into account what was going on in the United States on February 9, 1964 you'll understand the inflated stock. We were only 2 months removed from losing John F. Kennedy, and there was a troop escalation in a faraway place called Vietnam. The collective mood of the country was extremely low (except for Jimmy Hoffa and the CIA), and we were looking for something to lift our spirits. Enter four well dressed lads from Liverpool. They crossed the pond to the right place at the right time to hang out with Ed Sullivan. The country was taken by storm with such inane lyrics like "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," and "I want to hold your hand." Suddenly we had found the youth, charm, and innocent optimism that we lost in Dallas on a Friday afternoon. If the Beatles had missed that window by four months either way they would have been no bigger in this country than say, Queen.

In truth, the Beatles were nothing more than the boy band of its day. With songs like "I Saw Her Standing There" and "From Me To You", they would have been touring malls if they debuted in the late 80's. Even the British icon of cool dissed the Beatles in 1964. James Bond in Goldfinger remarked "there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!"

The Beatles started to make some strides, and by the time Revolver came out, the new Beatles sound was mature, serious, and had the hint of some major drug induced writing sessions. In the later years, there were only a few missteps the fab four had. Yoko and letting Ringo sing seems to top the list. Musically, there was one song that stuck out…"Across the Universe".

Until several years ago, I never liked that song, and I still don't like the Beatles version. To me, the mood of the vocals just didn't match the mood of the guitar. I have always thought that George Harrison's guitar begged for John Lennon to sing the song with more melancholy. To me, it was obvious that George and John were not in the studio at the same time. Such promise for a lyrically beautiful song that just wasn't realized.

Since then, "Across the Universe" has been covered many times in many different styles. There are over 150 different versions that you can buy on amazon.com (however the original isn't one of them). There are versions by David Bowie, Jackson Browne, the cover from the crappy movie of same name (another post for another day), and a beautiful solo piano version by André Mehmari.

One of the more notable covers in the last 15 years was released in 1999 for the Pleasantville soundtrack. Again the voice was a miscast. The producers of the film wanted to make a splash for the soundtrack, and they brought in Fiona Apple. She was off the heels of her phenomenal debut CD Tidal, and was preparing her second album. Fiona's jazzy low vocals didn't match the instrumentation. A nice try, but I still couldn't hear that song and feel the way I had always thought I should.

Then by chance, a second generation recording artist nailed the song three years later. Rufus Wainwright's bonus track from the CD Poses possesses everything that I was looking for in the song. His voice blends perfectly with the guitar, and feeds the need to close your eyes and just enjoy the song. For the first time, the mix was right, and Rufus's version had become the gold standard.

There have been two versions released this year. I have yet to hear the Cyndi Lauper version, but I did hear the unfortunate cover by Minnesota native Nicholas "The Feelin" Mrozinski. We'll just add it to a list of others who tried to match what Rufus did.