Sign In: or Sign Up! (forgotten password?)

Best version of hellelujah?

Much as I love this song, the original just doesn't do it for me and the Rufus one seems a bit too sterile.

I don't like the Buckley one either, not to be controversial mind.

So, any thoughts on others?



  • Caaallle.

    John Cale totally wins at this.

    • Yeah

      I knew he had done a version, but i couldn't find it anywhere. Do you happen to know what LP it's on?

      • It's on one of his live albums

        As well as a Cohen tribute record.

  • gotta be buckley

    • It leaves me cold

      colder than cold.
      Hang on, what's colder than cold?
      Buckley's version of Hallelujah.

  • HEllelujah???????

    good god, what have i done?

    • That'd be the Pantera version

      Hell-YEAH-ujah

  • please don't even mention the rufus wainwright one

    it's utter shit.

    • I wouldn't go that far

      It is very "i'd do anything" though. Competent and all, but dead inside.

      Like Michael Ballack I imagine.

  • you are correct

    i dont like buckley full stop and when i heard the original i was taken aback by how fail it was compared to the covers.
    definately john cale

  • buckley easily.

    all the others are shit. especially the rufus wainwright one.

  • i'm sick of the buckley one

    he just loves the sound of his own voice too much

    rufus one is too smug

    not heard the cale, so probably the original

    • the john cale version

      • Thank you

        stupidly i never even considered you tube :(

      • that is pretty good

      • and

        i get to read comments like
        "
        My girlfriend Jan lived with this guy in the mid 1970s and he threw a glass at her when he was angry and knocked out her front tooth. We were living in Paris at the same time and one morning we were walking in the street and she sneezed and her fake front tooth came out and we couldn't find it. She had been trying to get him to pay for her dental work and he wouldn't do it. Nice guy. "

    • the synthy stuff

      just annoys me in the orginal.

      The other two both sound uber-smug

  • John Cale, has to be.

    But Buckley's version is good as well.

  • btw

    hellelujah was the slayer cover right?

  • Best version

    I heard someone play this at an open mic night and they changed all the lyrics to completely take the piss out of the actual song. Was genius.

  • Jeff buckley

    I mean come on, i don't know how you couldn't be stirred by it.

    • I feel

      it's more an exercise in

      "goodness, how good am i?"

      as opposed to

      "how good is this song?"

      • Yeah, and he IS really good.

        and the prodcution is amazing and everything. It's brilliant.

      • nah

        i don't think that at all. don't really get all the 'smug'/'self satisifed' remarks about buckley...He was just really rather good at playing music.

  • Kathryn Williams

    does a lovely version

  • buckley

    or Cohen... execpt i havent heard Cale's version

  • thisGIRL's

  • Jeff Buckley's

    for me.

    • I agree

      It's Buckley. Cale's is alright.

  • Buckley made that song his bitch

    Leonard should hand over the copy rights to Jeff's survivors. If anyone saw the Leonard Cohen tribute (shamless asskissfest) movie where during the "Hellelujah" segment doesn't even give a nod to Jeff and then has Rufus Wainwright do his version (which was OK, not as good as Cohen's)- that's the moment I decided there is NO other version of "Hellelujah" other than Jeff Bukley's. Buckley's solitary clanging telecaster alone gives the song more than anyone else has- come on, give a dog a bone.

  • Cohen

    i dont care what you think its what i like.

    • ^ agree

      for all the weak points of Cohen's he doesn't fall in to the trap of all the cover versions I've heard where the song is overdone and sounds overwrought. Cale's version doesn't sound that different to Bon Jovi's to me.

      Cohens version sounds like he woke up with the song in his head, gathered some random musicians and a producer and laid it down right there - perfect.

      It's the same reason I prefer Porter Wagner's Satisfied Mind to Buckley's.

  • Has to be Buckley.

    Surely?

    I don't get all the smug stuff either.

  • Sad Kermit

  • I've decided

    I'm not wildly keen on any version. This might be because it seems to be a very standard/popular song for people to cover, and very few people add anything to it.

  • Its

    a toss between buckley and beirut...too close to call

  • The Pigeon Detectives' version

    is awesome

  • FOA bones_howe

    "Much as I love this song, the original just doesn't do it for me and the Rufus one seems a bit too sterile.

    I don't like the Buckley one either, not to be controversial mind.

    So, any thoughts on others?"

    Whose version of the song did you like then? I'm not being facetious, just wondering if there's an amazing version out there that turned you onto it that I've not heard...

    • well, no-one's, so far.

      I do love this song - the words, the tune - I just don't like the production on the orginal and the others bore me.

  • was it absentee

    who covered it on the dream brother compilatiion? whoever it was, i remember it being quite pretty - tho not as much as She Is which was stunning.

  • what about

    that kid that sung it on American Idol.

    ;-)

  • buckley every time

    though I am quite sick of it having listened to grace probably about 100 times more than any other album I own

    • Bloody hell

      not much support for the writers version - how shocking. Buckley's version feels too young and sexy to me - it needs someone to growl it from the tombs of experience!

  • OK - people who should cover it:

    Tom Waits
    Scott Walker
    P J Harvey
    Nick Cave

    any others?