Cohen Says Enough With the Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen has to be raking in big bucks on royalties for his song Hallelujah, but that doesn't mean that he's rejoicing over all of the different versions.

Hallelujah has taken on a life of its own over the last decade. The late-Jeff Buckley recorded a version on his last album, Grace, that brought huge popularity to the song. It was used on the soundtrack to a number of movies and became what could almost be called a standard in the club scene with artists covering it as part of their set.

It all peaked during the Christmas season last year when the song held the number 1 and 2 positions on the British singles chart by the newly crowned X Factor winner Alexander Burke and the Buckley version. Cohen's own mid-80's version was also farther down the chart at number 36.

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Cohen basically asked that people stop recording it for just a little bit.

I was happy that the song was being used, of course. There were certain ironic and amusing sidebars, because the record that it came from which was called Various Positions - [a] record Sony wouldn't put out. They didn't think it was good enough. It had songs like Dancing to the End of Love, Hallelujah, If It Be Your Will. So there was a mild sense of revenge that arose in my heart. But I was just reading a review of a movie called Watchmen that uses it, and the reviewer said "Can we please have a moratorium on Hallelujah in movies and television shows?" And I kind of feel the same way. I think it's a good song, but I think too many people sing it.