Ode to Life and Love: Revisiting Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’

In 1984, Leonard Cohen released Hallelujah on his album Various Positions to little initial success only for it to be popular through John Cale’s cover. Ten years later in 1994, Jeff Buckley recorded a cover of the song as part of his debut (and last) album Grace, which was also met with unfortunately middling reviews. However, nearly ten years later in 2003, Rolling Stone, the same publication that initially called Buckley’s Hallelujah "not battered or desperate enough" in a three-star review, listed the song as no. 264 in their “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list. Thirty years later, Buckley’s Grace is often lauded as one of the best albums ever made, with the artist’s crooning vocals and painful vulnerability resonating with every listener.

All his life, Jeff Buckley had been compared to his father, musician Tim Buckley. For two people who barely knew each other, Buckley was often told they looked, sounded, and sang alike. Even Herb Cohen, Tim Buckley’s former manager, sometimes accidentally called Jeff “Tim”. So when Rolling Stone opens their 1994 review stating boldly that “Jeff Buckley sounds like a man who doesn’t yet know what he wants to be,” does it encapsulate the singer-songwriter’s sensitivity throughout the album, or does it merely pose as a haunting reminder of the ties to his father and people’s comparisons between them?

Out of Buckley’s three covers on the album, Hallelujah seems to speak to audiences the most, at least retrospectively. Although American audiences in 1994 were instead listening to The Lion King or Pearl Jam, Australian charts loved Buckley –perhaps for the very reason he wasn’t in America. They knew Grace wasn’t a fully formed look into Jeff Buckley’s life and that was okay. In a time when every song on the Billboard charts was polished and sounded like it knew itself too well, his honesty and unique take on the music scene acted as a fresh start. As Buckley’s biographer Jeff Apter says, “He's bleeding on stage, that's absolutely authentic.”

This individuality is ingrained in Buckley’s lifestyle, where he found solace in New York’s Lower East Side in comparison to the “dead” Southern California where he was born. Buckley is often famous for saying he doesn’t really need to be remembered but he hopes his music is remembered, and this album is living proof of the musician’s way of life. His love for the Lower East Side’s eccentricity is captured in all the influences Buckley infuses into this album. He takes his three covers of Nina Simone’s Lilac Wine, Benjamin Britten’s Corpus Christi, and of course, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and makes it his own. It is a rejection of Los Angeles’ “industry town,” a “game [with] rules of which [he’d] never understood,” and like how “all [his] gigs were pretty much just out on the street”, Buckley often sang with his heart on his sleeve. That is the authenticity that makes him so important today.

In an interview with Hot Press, Jeff Buckley explained that the three covers on his album are because they represented a certain moment in his life. As the second half of the album begins and the nearly seven-minute long cover of Hallelujah begins to play, Buckley is heard sighing into the microphone. That could have been cut and left out in production, but it isn’t. Is this a sigh of exhaustion? Relief? In retrospect, much of this album is listened to with melancholy, with many people calling it Buckley’s “death prayer” as he would pass away tragically too soon three years later. No matter what his sigh implicates, it is Buckley’s invitation for listeners to see into his life and what this song meant to him. On one hand, this cover is played with a feeling of sadness, mourning Buckley’s untimely death, but the other should also be listened to through Buckley’s lens as an “ode to life and love.”

Whereas Cohen’s original version leans into the religious imagery aligning with his Jewish heritage and the gospel choir backing vocals, Buckley himself interpreted his cover a different way: “The hallelujah is not a homage to a worshipped person, idol or god, but the hallelujah of the orgasm.” Buckley’s cover is intimate and so stripped down it is almost as if he is inviting us to look into every corner of his mind. Although different in its intentions, Cohen also viewed that different forms of hallelujahs exist, as his own is significantly different from the Hallelujahs of composers such as Handel during the strictly religious Baroque period. Regardless of the time period and rendition, Hallelujahs have always spoken of a deep connection between the body and soul. Maybe this is why Buckley was so drawn to the song initially as he sang his heart out to the tune in the SinÉ cafe in New York “on the edge of tears,” despite not knowing why except that “it just wells up inside you.” The significance came from the emotions evoked in a person no matter how differently they perceive the song and its meaning.

Everyone who listens to Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah has their own associated memories. The singer-songwriter’s ability to connect to listeners regardless of who they are or where they come from, even thirty years later, is a skill that is hard to come by. Although the nature behind exactly why Hallelujah caught the attention and hearts of everyone is unclear. We know for certain that he was not trying to be anyone other than himself and not trying to hide any aspects of his life in his music. Many artists are often praised for being ahead of their time, Jeff Buckley is no different. His sensitivity is what makes him universally appealing and his music eternally resonant. That is Jeff Buckley’s ‘grace.’

Sources:

Brennan, Patrick “Remembering Jeff Buckley: Revisit his classic Hot Press interview” Hot Press 29 May 2024, https://www.hotpress.com/music/remembering-jeff-buckley-revisit-his-classic-hot-press-interview-23026084

Pollack, Sophie “Thoughts about “Hallelujah” on Jeff Buckley’s Birthday” Yale Daily News 15 Nov 2019, https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/11/15/thoughts-about-hallelujah-on-jeff-buckleys-birthday/

Miles, Daniel “Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah may not have reached its heights without Australia” ABC News 14 Sep 2024, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-14/jeff-buckley-grace-hallelujah-album-30-years/104303150

Taysom, Joe “How Jeff Buckley made ‘Hallelujah’ a masterpiece” Far Out Magazine 17 Nov 2020, https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/jeff-buckley-made-leonard-cohens-hallelujah-masterpiece/

Zacharek, Stephanie “Grace” Rolling Stone 3 Nov 1994, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/grace-190457/

Rolling Stone “500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004)” Rolling Stone 11 Dec 2003,

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-151127/jeff-buckley-hallelujah-49465/