Hallelujah has been recorded by so many people. My favorite version was by Jeff Buckley. That was an amazing combination of songwriter, arrangement and vocals. But I think that Cohen is best known as a songwriter. He's had so many songs recorded by other people; Famous Blue Raincoat, Bird on a Wire, Suzanne, Sisters of Mercy, Coming Back to You, Everybody Knows.
Cohen writes a different kind of lyric. I don't think he's better or worse than GL, just different. I've never been fond of him as a singer though, and there lies the difference for me. I could listen to Gordon's voice all day, but I can only take so much of Cohen singing Cohen.
quote:Originally posted by longriver:
Leonard Cohen is a great songwriter, perhaps best known as the author of "Suzanne", an allegory of the Holy Spirit. "Hallelujah" is also a fine song, but it's probably been voted "greatest" because it showed up in the recent movie hit "Shrek", which my kids have only watched about 1000 times, both in English and in Spanish.
Be wary of any group that tries to pin the "greatest" label on anything--there's surely an agenda somewhere, or at the very least a lack of historical objectivity. When I was young, "Hey Jude" by the Beatles was universally acclaimed as the greatest song ever; of course, this judgement was made in 1968. I doubt that even the most die-hard Beatles fan would say now that no other song, including many others by the Beatles, was any better.
I listen to Lightfoot every day, and can name a couple of dozen songs better than "Hallelujah" (again, taking nothing away from Leonard Cohen, who is wonderful)--CRT, DQ, HFTF, Restless, and many more.
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