Alleluia, alleluia, (repeat).
— Pachelbel's "Canon in D major"
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"
— From the "Hallelujah Chorus" in Handel's "Messiah"
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya ...
Well, maybe there's a God above
but all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya;
It's not a cry you hear at night
It's not someone who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah ...
— From Jeff Buckley's version of the 1984 song by
Leonard Cohen
I sang my first Alleluia as a member of the Sacred
Heart church choir. During Holy Week, the organ in the choir loft was
silent — we sang a capella on Good Friday and during the Saturday
evening vigil service. Then, on Easter Sunday, when Jesus rose from the
dead, the organ vibrated with triumphant melody, and we sang "Alleluia,
alleluia," our young voices joyous, rising.
We didn't use an "h" and never sang Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," but we
were saying the same thing: Rejoice. He has risen. God shall reign.
A century before Handel, Johann Pachelbel wrote a gentler Alleluia. I
heard the New Age recording by Robert Grass for the first time in
Salem's Pyramid bookstore; couldn't get it out of my mind and bought it
a few weeks later. I play it when I am recovering from surgery; on the
rare occasions when I can't sleep; and, of course, on Easter morning.
It's a soothing chant, with no lyrics but the repetition of this single
life-affirming word.
I'm told I could have heard Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" on several of
my favorite TV shows: "House," "The West Wing," "Lost," "Roswell" and
"Cold Case." But the first time I noticed it was when the chorus was
played at the end of "Numbers" one Friday night.
For days, I hummed the tune at friends, trying to identify it. Finally,
I tried my family in Nevada. My son didn't know it, but the
then-5-year-old twins told me it was from "Shrek." They gave me that DVD
for Christmas, and sure enough, "Hallelujah" is the movie's theme. I put
it on my iPod, along with the k.d. lang version; it's my favorite song.
And I am not alone. Recently, it was sung by an "American Idol"
contestant, and I was surprised to hear both Simon and Randy identify it
as their favorite, too. That week, it became the most-downloaded song on
iTunes. Last week, Geoff Edgers wrote about it in The Boston Globe,
quoting Tom Calderone of VH1 saying, "We need more songs that are
inspirational."
That startled me somewhat, and my "tell the truth" gene kicked in with
its evolved cynicism.
The "Hallelujah Chorus" is inspirational; as you can see, above, Cohen's
Hallelujah is almost a sarcastic use of the word, noting love gone
wrong. The full lyrics do begin with stories from the Bible, but tell of
the adultery of David and Bathsheba and the betrayal by Delilah of
Samson, before going on to detail the modern singer's loss and pain.
And yet, and yet. The song is unearthly beautiful. It soothes, like
Pachelbel's canon.
"The minor fall, the major lift," seems to reflect life itself. My
friend Sara, who sang with me in the choir, and who has known terrible
loss with the death of a child, told me that this Hallelujah is one
response to the bad things that happen. She said she'd heard different
lyrics than mine that touched her own sadness.
I went looking, and found this additional lyric, waiting for me and for
our times:
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to ya?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
So it's Holy Week, 2008: There's war in the Middle
East, genocide in Africa, repression of the Tibetan revolt by China;
national recession, incomprehensible national and personal debt;
governments failing in their missions; Islamic terrorists murdering
Israeli students; a black minister screaming racist hate; child, animal
and elderly abuse; the resurgence of diseases once thought to be
controlled; and new germs evolving.
We can give in to fear and despair, escaping into distractions and
apathy; or, as spring arrives and Easter dawns, we can face our
challenges, celebrating that so many of us diverse human beings love the
same song, and sing yet another discovered verse:
Hallelujah, hallelujah...
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.
Alleluia. Hallelujah! Hallelujah ...
Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation. Her column appears weekly in the Salem News and
Eagle Tribune, and often in the Newburyport Times, Gloucester Times, and
Lowell Sun; bi-weekly in the Tinytown Gazette; and occasionally in the
Providence (RI) Journal and other newspapers.