{"id":3640,"date":"2017-03-27T22:37:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T21:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennywilson.org\/?p=3640"},"modified":"2017-03-27T22:37:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T21:37:03","slug":"john-cale-on-making-leonard-cohens-hallelujah-a-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/2017\/03\/27\/john-cale-on-making-leonard-cohens-hallelujah-a-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cale on Making Leonard Cohen&#8217;s &#8216;Hallelujah&#8217; a Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leonard Cohen struggled to unlock the potential of \u201cHallelujah\u201d\u2014it was John Cale who held the key<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/people.com\/music\/john-cale-leonard-cohen-hallelujah-arrangement-fragnments-of-a-rainy-season\/\">John Cale on Making Leonard Cohen&#8217;s &#8216;Hallelujah&#8217; a Classic<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"John Cale - Hallelujah (Official Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-gi3J8nPKPE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/people.com\/music\/leonard-cohen-hallelujah-history\/\">Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cHallelujah\u201d<\/a> was a complex, nearly indecipherable musical riddle that flummoxed even its composer. Originally released as a funereal synth-laden\u00a0dirge on 1984\u2019s\u00a0<em>Various Positions,\u00a0<\/em>he\u00a0spent years tinkering with the track during live performances in a relentless pursuit to unlock its full melodic potential. Ultimately, it was John Cale who provided the key.<\/p>\n<p>The iconoclastic Velvet Underground co-founder, producer and innovative writer\/arranger\u00a0crafted an elegiac\u00a0version of \u201cHallelujah\u201d that vaulted the song into a rarefied strata of modern standards. Now he speaks to PEOPLE about the song\u2019s long journey.<\/p>\n<p>First included on an obscure Leonard Cohen tribute album, <em>I\u2019m Your Fan<\/em>, commissioned by the French music magazine <em><i>Les Inrockuptibles<\/i><\/em>\u00a0in 1991, it\u2019s perhaps best known for\u00a0the stark version that appeared the following year on Cale\u2019s live collection, <a href=\"https:\/\/geo.itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/fragments-of-a-rainy-season\/id1170673098?app=itunes&amp;at=1000lsPY&amp;ct=POmusicjohncalefragmentsJR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Fragments of a Rainy Season<\/em><\/a>. Something of a precursor to the \u201cunplugged\u201d performance concept that exploded in the first half of the 1990s, the album was a stripped down career retrospective reaching back to\u00a0Cale\u2019s early collaborations with his Velvet Underground bandmate <a href=\"http:\/\/people.com\/celebrity\/lou-reed-legendary-rocker-dies-at-71\/\">Lou Reed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last fall, the\u00a0album was recently given a deluxe reissue, complete with bonus tracks and outtakes from throughout the extensive European tour. \u201cHallelujah\u201d received a bewitching\u00a0video directed by\u00a0Abby Portner, invoking elements\u00a0from Shakespeare\u2019s <em>MacBeth\u00a0<\/em>to portray the song\u2019s crumbling grandeur.<\/p>\n<p>Cale first heard the track\u00a0while attending one of Cohen\u2019s concerts at New York City\u2019s Beacon Theater in 1990. \u201cI was really an admirer of his poetry,\u201d he tells PEOPLE. \u201cIt never let you down. There\u2019s a timelessness to it.\u201d The song stayed in his mind, he didn\u2019t decide to record it until\u00a0<em>Les\u00a0<i>Inrockuptibles<\/i> <\/em>asked him to contribute\u00a0to <em>I\u2019m Your Fan <\/em>several months later. In the pre-digital days, there was really only one way to learn the tune at short notice: \u201cI called <span id=\"0.08502496884812882\" class=\"highlight\">Leonard<\/span> and asked him to send me the lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Famously, there were a lot. \u201cFifteen verses,\u201d Cale confirms. \u201cIt was a long roll of fax paper. And then I choose whichever ones were really\u00a0<i>me<\/i>. Some of them were religious, and coming out of my mouth would have been a little difficult to believe. I choose the cheeky ones.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"John Cale - Hallelujah\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BwK5M2TpyHo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After recording the song for <em>I\u2019m Your Fan<\/em>, he toyed with a variety of arrangements on his 1992 tour\u00a0documented on <em>Fragments of a Rainy Season<\/em>. \u201cThere were a lot of different venues and a lot of different kinds of performances. And as it turned out the ones that were best were the ones that were done on a real piano, not an electric piano. Every time we got a real Steinway things went up a couple notches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cale\u2019s version of \u201cHallelujah\u201d immediately struck a chord, inspiring\u00a0a host of artists to offer their own take. A young Jeff Buckley added a\u00a0hauntingly intimate version to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/geo.itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/grace-legacy-edition\/id385560474?app=itunes&amp;at=1000lsPY&amp;ct=POmusicjeffbuckleygraceJR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Grace<\/em><\/a>, his sole release before drowning in the Mississippi at age 30. His death added an extra dose of pathos to the intensely gripping song, and within a decade the number of cover versions had swelled to 300. According to Cale, Cohen grew weary of his creation\u2019s popularity.\u00a0\u201cHe said, \u2018I don\u2019t want to hear any more new versions of \u201cHallelujah\u201d! Let\u2019s put an embargo on that!&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leonard Cohen struggled to unlock the potential of \u201cHallelujah\u201d\u2014it was John Cale who held the key Source: John Cale on Making Leonard Cohen&#8217;s &#8216;Hallelujah&#8217; a Classic Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cHallelujah\u201d was a complex, nearly indecipherable musical riddle that flummoxed even its composer. Originally released as a funereal synth-laden\u00a0dirge on 1984\u2019s\u00a0Various Positions,\u00a0he\u00a0spent years tinkering with the track [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,16,27,43,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-video","category-counterculture","category-film","category-leonard-cohen","category-poetry","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}