Leonard Cohen’s David and Bathsheba and The Baffled King Composing

 

"Hallelujah"

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 you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

 

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

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 you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The title of Cohen's song, Hallelujah, descends from the middle English word "Alleluia", a 'liturgical chant' referring to a song or praise to God. Jeff Buckley once suggested it was a song that was more a lament for the sexual pleasures of the body than an appeal to God for the grace of the soul. In the strictly religious context the title feels ironical as a praise to the body.  But there seems to be no end to the popularity of the song and its deployment in so many diverse contexts, as noted recently by Alan Wright , who asks in his book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah": "How did this unconventional song attain such popularity, in such an incremental fashion, over such an extended period of time? Why did it go from being a forgotten album cut by a respected but generally unknown singer-songwriter to a track on Susan Boyle's 2010 Christmas record?" ( http://www.dallasobserver.com/2013-01-17/music/alan-light-s-new-book-explains-how-leonard-cohen-s-hallelujah-went-from-obscurity-to-ubiquity/).

 

Cohen's song is drawn from two of the most famous couples in old testament biblical history, David and Bathsheba, and Samson and Delilah.

The clearest interpretation of Cohen’s song within the context of the biblical story of David comes by 'gdevi' on her blogpage:

 ‘Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah uses both the David story above and the story of Samson whose power and morality are taken away from him by his corrupt consort Delilah. Thus the speaker in this song is at a point in his life where he is looking back and acknowledging the immoral and ungodly things he did on behalf of a woman that he wanted: he has engaged in a corrupt marriage like David and Bathsheba (“you saw her bathing on the roof”) and Samson and Delilah (“she cut your hair”–violating the Nazirite injunction so that God leaves Samson). He knows he has displeased God and he has lost God. There is great sorrow in this recognition he acquires–because as with King David who was “baffled” that he could play great music–it was God’s gift to David–David did nothing to deserve it –the speaker is also aware that God had blessed him unbeknownst to him and that he lost it. There is some bad sex writing in the following lyrics with “remember how I moved in you/ the holy dove was moving too,” but the upshot is that the frame story of David and Bathsheba and that of Samson and Delilah to whom the speaker compares himself are both broken love stories of godlessness, of couples who angered god and whom god deserted to die broken. We hear the curse that their life has become–they have no connection with each other–much like that of David and Bathsheba and of Samson and Delilah, their corruptly yoked lives have unraveled: “it is a cold and broken hallelujah.”

However, like both of his biblical stand-ins, David and Samson, the speaker in the song reasserts his faith in god, however fallen he feels, a characteristic trait in all Abrahamic theologies. To utter your disbelief in god is to announce your belief in god as well. Perhaps it is his awareness of how he has strayed in life–the path of self-deception which is emblematic of the David and Bathsheba story–a marriage with a murder (in Cohen’s song not necessarily a murder, but something unholy and perhaps a fundamental taboo) under it– that makes him realize that god has left him. But he also understands that, just like David was “baffled” that he could make music, the speaker was blessed by God to sing, and so, like David he will repent and praise god. It sounds like an autobiographical song. Thus the final repeated refrains of hallelujahs are meant to signal the rising fervant faith of the speaker in a god who has shown him, like the Hebrew god always does, that god is always a step ahead of you.

But “Hallelujah” is more than a pop culture tribute to one of the bible's most soul-shattering morality tales; it is a homily to the reverence of melody that reaches the soul. It is a homily not for God but for one's own soul, an affirmation of its existence.  Just listening to Jeff Buckley's 1996 rendition from the Grace album suggests that.  What is the mystery of the secret chord that David played?  It may refer to the inspiration that Cohen, or any other artist who longs for his muse, cannot trace as he states in his speech, “Poetry comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers. So I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command. In other words, if I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.” But you do know, Leonard, look in the book of  2 Samuel, verse 7. 

In an interview partially reproduced by Maud Newton in a blogpost, Cohen reveals the earthly inspiration for his music came from his brief encounter as a young man in Montreal with a young musician from Spain who was playing in a nearby park: “It was those six chords,” Cohen said,“it was that guitar pattern that has been the basis of all my songs and all my music… Everything that you have found favorable in my work comes from this place. Everything. Everything that you have found favorable in my songs, in my poetry [is] inspired by this soil.” (Cohen's statement when receiving the Spain's Prince of Asturias award).